Oral Answers to Questions

DEFENCE

The Secretary of State was asked—

RAF Fairford

Parmjit Dhanda: If he will make a statement on flights over Gloucester by military aircraft from RAF Fairford.

Adam Ingram: Military aircraft using RAF Fairford would not normally fly over Gloucester.

Parmjit Dhanda: I thank my right hon. Friend for his reassurance on that matter. He may be aware of correspondence that I received from the Under-Secretary of State for Defence on 29 August that said that the military flights over Gloucester spotted by some of my constituents may have been connected to the royal international air tattoo held between 19 and 21 July this year. Will my right hon. Friend prevail on the authorities at RAF Fairford, RAF Brize Norton and other air bases to ensure that hon. Members are informed when there is a possibility of flights over their constituencies as a result of air shows or tattoos?

Adam Ingram: My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I am sorry if such notification was not given on that occasion. It is not always RAF Fairford that is affected; Brize Norton can also be involved, as he rightly said. I assure him that we shall seek to notify hon. Members in the circumstances that he set out.

Nick Hawkins: The Minister will be aware that many of the aircraft that participate in the RAF Fairford tattoo also take part in the Farnborough air show, which employs many of my constituents—

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Shipping Security

Bill O'Brien: What plans he has to increase Royal Navy safeguards for British shipping; and if he will make a statement.

Geoff Hoon: The Ministry of Defence works closely with other Government Departments on the protection of merchant shipping. The Royal Navy's worldwide maritime trade operations—known as MTO arrangements—enable it to offer a number of options to support merchant shipping. They range from the provision of routine advice and guidance to naval supervision of merchant vessels. Decisions about the timing and type of support offered are informed by the potential threat in any given region or area. For example, MTO arrangements in the Gulf have been enhanced since October last year. The threat to merchant shipping is kept under constant review. If necessary, additional maritime trade operations measures can be implemented very quickly.

Bill O'Brien: I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. Does he agree that shipping could be a soft target for terrorists in certain areas? The recent attack on the French tanker Limburg off the coast of Yemen was identified as a terrorist attack. Such incidents show the need for Royal Navy protection for British merchant ships in high-risk areas. He is aware that, following the new tax laws for British shipping, there has been a significant increase in British-registered merchant ships—more than 60 per cent. in the past few months—and a substantial increase in British operational interests. The need for the protection of the red ensign is, therefore, of paramount importance at all times. What protection, other than what he outlined in his reply, is the Royal Navy giving to our merchant shipping?

Geoff Hoon: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his concern on this important subject. I agree that we must keep the threat to shipping under close review. I am sure that he and other hon. Members will understand why I will not go into precise detail about that, but the MTO arrangements allow us to make a graduated response, giving the possibility of an appropriate and considered reaction to any increased threat. As I said earlier, the security arrangements for the Gulf region have been enhanced. Maritime trade operations remain under routine daily review by the Ministry of Defence, and can be changed very quickly in response to variations in the assessed threat level.

John Redwood: Will the Secretary of State tell us how many naval vessels are not currently operational and on duty, and what action he is taking urgently to bring more ships back into use?

Geoff Hoon: What I can tell the House is that the Royal Navy is in a position to carry out all the operations that it is required to, and to carry out the medium-scale war-fighting capability required under the defence planning assumptions. The right hon. Gentleman might like to know that Royal Navy vessels and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Service are currently deployed in the Caribbean, the Gulf, the far east, the Mediterranean and the south Atlantic. In addition, they continue to undertake operational training.

Gwyn Prosser: According to The Telegraph, the journal of the Merchant Navy officers' union NUMAST—the National Union of Marine, Aviation and Shipping Transport Officers—there have been some 2,300 terrorist or pirate attacks on merchant ships over the past 10 years, in which 280 seafarers have been killed and more than 270 seriously injured. Taking into account this worldwide issue, and the fact that companies are cutting crews, will my right hon. Friend speak to his colleagues in other Departments about the whole issue of safe manning levels and the ability to mount safe patrols on the ships?

Geoff Hoon: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question, and I know how conscientiously he pursues merchant shipping matters. I assure him, as I assured the House a few minutes ago, that the Ministry of Defence takes considerable interest in the matter, and we are in regular contact with other Departments to respond to any enhanced threat to merchant shipping, wherever it is in the world.

Gerald Howarth: But why would not the Secretary of State answer my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood)? In the light of the recent threat to a Royal Navy ship in the straits of Gibraltar and the attack on a French tanker lying off Yemen mentioned by the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien), are not the Government gambling with Britain's maritime security by allowing half the fleet to remain out of action? Can the Secretary of State confirm weekend press reports that at least two front-line RAF Tornado interceptor squadrons are similarly out of action? Does not all that graphically show that there is no spare capacity and that the Government are simply not prepared for the unexpected?

Geoff Hoon: It is unfortunate that the hon. Gentleman believes everything he reads in the weekend newspapers and, moreover, comes to the House with that material and chooses to run down the capability of the armed forces. Had he listened to my answer to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) more carefully than he apparently did, he would have noticed that the operational responsibilities of the Royal Navy remain unaffected. It is capable of carrying out the range of activities according to the defence planning assumptions. Therefore, the number is not strictly relevant at this stage. Provided that it can carry out the range of its requirements under the assumptions that are set down, that should be an end of the matter. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman, who claims to take an interest in matters military and the armed forces, should come to the House and run down this country's military capabilities.

Michael Clapham: Has my right hon. Friend called for an assessment of the implications for the safety of British shipping caused by the delay in getting the Nimrod aircraft back in service? When does he expect it to return to service?

Geoff Hoon: Obviously, there are concerns about the availability of Nimrod. That matter is, for the moment at any rate, the responsibility of BAE Systems. We have a very clear contract with it for the delivery of those aircraft. Obviously, this is a matter that we keep under constant review. I assure my hon. Friend that there is no extra threat to the safety and security of our shipping, because the protection afforded by existing aircraft is quite sufficient for the moment.

Reservists (Call-up)

Harry Cohen: What call-up of reservists he has (a) made recently and (b) plans to make and for what reasons; and if he will make a statement.

Geoff Hoon: A call-out order was made on 14 October 2002 in support of operations in Afghanistan and related operations against international terrorism. This was purely for the continuation of existing operations. In line with our policy since the strategic defence review, any substantial new operation would require support from reservists. That would be the subject of a separate call-out order at the appropriate time.

Harry Cohen: Would not such a separate call-out order suggest that the Government are prepared to go on with a war against Iraq with little regard for international law or the United Nations process? Is not The Daily Telegraph correct today in saying that such a call-out is likely to be done by Queen's order, which was last used in the Korean war and would criminalise those who do not want to volunteer for such a call-out? Is the advice given by officials to my right hon. Friend, as quoted in The Daily Telegraph, correct—that there would not be sufficient volunteers if the call-up were voluntary? Would not such a call-up have a draconian effect on the national health service and on businesses and employers?

Geoff Hoon: I have just warned Conservative Members about the dangers of believing what they read in the newspapers. According to this morning's edition of The Daily Telegraph, I am supposedly announcing the mobilisation of reserves today. I can tell the House, and The Daily Telegraph, if any of its correspondents have chosen to be here, that that is not true. No such order is being made today. Military action against Iraq is neither imminent nor inevitable. In those circumstances, I can reassure my hon. Friend, I hope, that if it is necessary to call out reserves, the House will be the first to know.

Paul Keetch: I am grateful for the Secretary of State's final remarks, because I am sure that he agrees that such speculation affects the individuals concerned and their families. The best way to ensure that there is no such speculation is for him to reassure the House of Commons, as he has just done, that there will be a full statement or a full debate in the House before any reservists are called up, so that the announcement is made here, not in the press.

Geoff Hoon: I am sure that that is absolutely right. The subject of the question was the call-out of reservists and the procedures that would be necessary. Obviously a call-out order would be necessary, and would have to be laid before the House in the normal way.

Tam Dalyell: Did my right hon. Friend notice that, according to The Daily Telegraph, certain Labour Members were primed to ask this question? Had that been so, would he have chosen as his conduits my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Harry Cohen) for Question 4 and me for Question 17?
	If my right hon. Friend is going to do this, should it really be done through the royal prerogative? Perhaps the royal prerogative is not the right way in which to do it.

Geoff Hoon: Let me come to the rescue of my hon. Friend's reputation, and indeed that of my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Harry Cohen). Neither would be regarded as the usual suspects in connection with the tabling of the sort of question on which The Daily Telegraph speculated—wrongly—this morning.
	As for the royal prerogative and the substance of my hon. Friend's question, as he knows much better than I—given his much longer experience of this place—that is the way in which these things are done in the United Kingdom. That has always been the case, and I anticipate that it always will be.

Julian Brazier: Does the Secretary of State accept that one of the most overstretched, vulnerable and important parts of the reserve forces is the medical reserves—not least because many of them are extremely vulnerable in their civilian jobs, which are mostly in the national health service? What inquiry has been made into the recent disastrous decision to mobilise a large number of them compulsorily, and send them home shortly afterwards having found that they were not needed?

Geoff Hoon: I do not accept that our medical reserves are overstretched, but I certainly accept that, as a result of the disastrous decisions of the last Government about medical support for our armed forces—[Interruption.] Opposition Members are gesticulating wildly, and one says, XFive years". I suggest that he ring his local medical school and find out how long it takes to train a doctor. He will find that it takes rather longer than five years, which is why direct responsibility for the shortage of doctors and other trained medical staff lies with the last Conservative Government, who affected the way in which we support our armed forces so disastrously.
	I am not at all content with the number of doctors and other medical support staff. We are taking urgent action to deal with that.

Bernard Jenkin: I recall that during the defence reviews of the 1990s, the Labour party complained that we had not cut enough. I should remind the Secretary of State of that.
	The right hon. Gentleman's body language suggests that nothing could be further from his mind than the suggestion that there might be a substantial call-out of reservists and the Territorial Army over the next few months. We all know that that likelihood must in fact be at the front of his mind. We have no doubt that the armed forces, the Territorials and the reserves will do all that they can to deliver a professional and excellent service to this country if such a call arises; but the impression that we continue to receive from the right hon. Gentleman's Department is that he is unprepared for the unexpected.
	We already have reservists spread across the world, from Northern Ireland to the Balkans and Afghanistan. The strategic defence review went much further, cutting the core element of the reserve forces, the Territorial Army. Will the Secretary of State now admit that that was a mistake; and has he set a new, increased target for the TA?

Geoff Hoon: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman had to ramble through a series of observations before asking a specific question, but I will do my best to deal with his apparently unconnected remarks.
	Military action against Iraq is neither imminent nor inevitable. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as any other Member that any substantial military operation nowadays would require support from reservists, and our planning processes take that into account. As I have said, there has been no decision on that, and as soon as a decision is made the House will of course be informed in the normal way, following a call-out order.
	We have debated here, on a number of occasions, the appropriate number of reservists who might be required. He knows as well as the House does—it was set out in a White Paper and the House has debated the new chapter of the strategic defence review—that we propose adjustments in the number and organisation of our reservists. That will not come as any great surprise to him or any other Member.

Bernard Jenkin: The answer is that the Secretary of State is still thinking about it and he has not got a policy. Does he recall the difficulties faced by his Department when it was suggested that we might have to mobilise reservists for the Kosovo conflict? The Select Committee report on the strategic defence review and the reserve forces stated:
	XIf the MoD had had to mobilise up to 18,000 reservists it is hard to imagine that it would have been achievable in an orderly and efficient manner using present facilities and procedures."
	The deputy inspector general of the Territorial Army is quoted as saying:
	XThe problem we had in planning was that we had to do a hell of a lot of work in a hell of a hurry."
	Have we learned the lessons of the Kosovo conflict or, if it becomes necessary to have such a call-out again, will we face the same problems?

Geoff Hoon: I am slightly surprised that the hon. Gentleman should choose Kosovo as an example. The British forces' action in Kosovo in the spring and summer of 1999 was a remarkable and successful operation. Given the date and circumstances of the operation, it is a dangerous example for a Front-Bench spokesman of the Conservative party to use, given that it was responsible for the organisation of reservists in 1997. I am sorry if he has to go back that far for his illustration. The reality is that we have a clear policy on reservists, which was set out in the strategic defence review and repeated again in the new chapter to that review. Both have been thoroughly and fully debated in the House.

Bernard Jenkin: I simply asked what lessons have been learned from the preparations for a mobilisation four years ago. The Secretary of State did not suggest a single one. I remind him that it took six months to mobilise the 3rd Military Intelligence Battalion before a single reservist was deployed on operations in the past 12 months. It is interesting that the Prime Minister said that the only orders laid have been routine ones, and brushed aside any suggestion of a call-up in the near future. Is the Secretary of State ruling out a major call-up of the reserves in the next few months? How much warning will reservists get? Preparations by the United States are already much in advance of ours.

Geoff Hoon: Again, on both counts, the hon. Gentleman should look more carefully before he asks such questions. The United States has arrangements for the call-out of reservists very similar to ours. If he checked before asking those rather foolish questions, he would find that the United States has not taken any decision on reserves either. I answered his question a few moments ago when I said that any substantial military operation requires support from reservists, and all our planning processes take that into account. If it is necessary to call out reservists, we will do so.

Recruitment

Tony Cunningham: What measures the Ministry of Defence is taking to promote the armed forces to students in school.

Adam Ingram: All three services have school presentation teams and careers advisers who, between them, last year undertook visits to over 4,600 schools. Their purpose is to raise awareness of, and provide information on, careers opportunities in the armed forces. In addition, a schools adviser team has been operating since November 2001, using a trial presentation to raise awareness among year 10 pupils of the role played by the armed forces and the Ministry of Defence at home and abroad.

Tony Cunningham: As a member of the armed forces parliamentary scheme linked with the RAF—I know that other hon. Members involved are also in their places—I am very aware of the tremendous role that the armed forces play. What discussions has my right hon. Friend had with the Department for Education and Skills to ensure that the initiatives that he mentions are linked to the national curriculum?

Adam Ingram: As a graduate of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, I am always pleased to hear it getting a plug. I encourage more right hon. and hon. Members to participate in that excellent scheme.
	My hon. Friend raises an important issue. It is important that our involvement in schools benefits both teachers and students. The schools presentation team has designed material to fit in around the national curriculum, using real-life experiences in the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces. We are developing that material with the DFES and its counterparts in Scotland and Wales, and working with teachers and schools to help ensure that it is useful and relevant to their needs. This is a very good example of Departments working together at national and local level to ensure that students, teachers and the Ministry of Defence benefit from the work.

David Burnside: Will the Minister give us his experience of any similarities or differences in promoting the armed forces to students in schools in Northern Ireland, especially during the period when Martin McGuinness was Minister of Education?

Adam Ingram: The hon. Gentleman is asking me to go back some time in my experience. I was not wholly conscious of such a process taking place in schools in Northern Ireland, but there is no reason why it should not. That would be a very good indication of the normalcy that we all hoped would apply in Northern Ireland. I shall consider the matter to see whether there are any differences in Northern Ireland and exactly what we are doing there.

Adrian Bailey: In view of the significant under-representation of ethnic minorities in the armed forces, what special initiatives have been taken to recruit ethnic minority students into the armed forces, and what success has there been to date?

Adam Ingram: A number of important initiatives have been taken to address this key issue. We are beginning to achieve a measure of success, although we are not achieving the percentage that we had hoped for in the overall numbers of ethnic community members joining the armed forces. None the less, we are beginning to see an upward trend. That is based on using good exemplars in key areas in London and other parts of England to look at areas where we can draw from those communities. Members of ethnic communities who join the armed forces give top-class service and become good exemplars in their communities.

A400M

Andrew Turner: If he will make a statement on the A400M programme.

Geoff Hoon: We remain committed to purchasing 25 A400M aircraft. Belgium, France, Turkey and Spain also remain firmly committed to the programme. However, there is still uncertainty about the position of Portugal, and we still await resolution of the German funding issues. In the interim, we continue to work with all our partners to bring the signed contract into effect as soon as possible

Andrew Turner: I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. I am sure that he will be aware of the concern with which those in the aerospace industry view the A400M programme and the difficulties with our German partners. Can he confirm that there is a deadline for confirmation of this important programme, which will please so many of my constituents in East Cowes?

Geoff Hoon: I emphasise to the hon. Gentleman and the House that the United Kingdom wants to see this programme move forward. The contract will enter into force once Germany has the approval of the Bundestag for funding and can make its full commitment to the programme. Continued participation of other nations, including the United Kingdom, is subject to that German signature becoming effective without any qualifications. However, there is no specific deadline in the way that his question suggests.

Crispin Blunt: Is not the truth that this programme was always more political than military, and that it does not represent good value for money compared with the alternatives available? Should not the Government try to get out of this contract as soon as possible?

Geoff Hoon: I do not accept that for a moment. The A400M is the best deal for the Royal Air Force, the taxpayer and British industry. I am surprised to hear a senior and experienced Conservative Member make a suggestion that would clearly be extraordinarily detrimental to Britain's military capability and, crucially, to British jobs.

BAE Systems

Paul Farrelly: What role his Department has had in the promotion of arms sales by BAE Systems in the last two years, with particular reference to spare parts.

Geoff Hoon: The Government are committed to encouraging and supporting legitimate United Kingdom defence exports. The Defence Export Services Organisation—DESO—within the Ministry of Defence is responsible for co-ordinating such support. In line with that policy, DESO has provided varied assistance to BAE Systems during the past two years, across a number of potential overseas defence requirements.

Paul Farrelly: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. He will be aware of the United Nations panel report, issued a fortnight ago, into illegal exploitation of resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The report had wide press coverage and alleged, in particular, the busting of EU sanctions by Mr. John Bredenkamp, a Berkshire-based arms dealer. It stated that, earlier this year, that gentleman had brokered the delivery for the Zimbabwean air force, either directly or via a third country, of spare parts for Hawk jets made by British Aerospace. Will the Secretary of State undertake to investigate those serious allegations with the Foreign Office and the Department of Trade and Industry, review any relationships between his Department and Mr. Bredenkamp, as well as any role anywhere in the export of Hawk spares by British Aerospace; and report back on his conclusions and thereby play his part—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that the Secretary of State could manage an answer.

Geoff Hoon: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had got the message.
	The Government certainly take seriously all credible reports of misuse or diversion of UK exported equipment. All our overseas missions have standing instructions to look into and report on any allegations of such misuse in the countries that they cover.
	As regards the specific allegations made by my hon. Friend, the Government are investigating the matter.

George Osborne: The Secretary of State may remember that BAE Systems in Woodford, on the edge of my constituency, is a major employer of my constituents. Will he take this opportunity to remind the House that legitimate sales by BAE Systems are good for jobs and investment in this country?

Geoff Hoon: I entirely agree with that observation. I only wish that the hon. Gentleman could have communicated that fact to his hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) a few minutes ago.

Peter Kilfoyle: Can the Secretary of State tell us whether BAE Systems provided any parts or equipment for the grounded fleet of Apache helicopters? If so, will he tell the House what were the principal contributions made by British Aerospace?

Geoff Hoon: Certainly, BAE Systems contributes to the Apache programme, but may I make it clear to my hon. Friend that the problems mentioned by the National Audit Office in no way relate to the viability of Apache as a piece of military equipment? Indeed, the report indicates that Apaches are being delivered broadly to time and to cost. The specific problem that we have to deal with arises from the difficulties of securing appropriate software for the training simulator—a problem that would have arisen in any event, but one that we are obviously seeking urgently to resolve.

Wheeled Tanker Project

Anne Campbell: What criteria he will use to decide on the award of the contract for the wheeled tanker project.

Adam Ingram: The decision we reach will be based on ensuring the best capability for our armed forces at the best value for money, for defence and the British taxpayer. We will use a range of criteria to reach the decision for contract award, which will include technical and commercial compliance, through-life support and industrial participation.

Anne Campbell: When my right hon. Friend considers the award of that contract, will he take into account superior British technology, long experience in serving the MOD and excellent British workmanship? All are available from Marshall Aerospace in my constituency.

Adam Ingram: We shall certainly take into account all those factors, whichever contractor bids for the project.

Anne McIntosh: The right hon. Gentleman will be aware of the prestigious company, Multidrive Ltd., in Thirsk in my constituency, which can outshine any bid. When might a decision be announced, bearing it in mind that, wherever possible, if all the criteria are met, including quality, on-time delivery and value for money, the Government will choose British?

Adam Ingram: I cannot give the hon. Lady a precise month, but the decision is imminent. I suspect that is why there is so much public lobbying at present.

SA80

Phil Sawford: What action he has taken to ensure the reliability of the SA80 rifle used by British forces.

Adam Ingram: The SA80 modification programme has significantly improved the reliability and performance of the weapon. Extensive trials were carried out across all climatic conditions before the modified weapon was introduced. More recent trials and demonstrations in Afghanistan and Oman have established beyond doubt that the weapon is reliable and accurate and can be maintained in an operational environment.

Phil Sawford: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. With much talk of a possible war with Iraq, many people, including my constituents, would wish to be reassured that our armed forces have reliable weapons, but will he tell the House who, if anyone, has accepted responsibility for the problems experienced with the SA80? Will he also tell the House who has paid the #80 million cost of the modifications to 300,000 rifles?

Adam Ingram: Well, the taxpayer pays for the modifications. As for who takes responsibility, when we modified the weapon, we put it through an intensive trial period and, because of some issues relating to the maintenance regime, it was discovered that it was not always functioning in the way that had been anticipated. That is why we then put it back through an even more detailed set of conditions in very extreme circumstances. An important key to this, of course, was that the actual practitioners—not officials and certainly not Ministers—decided whether the weapon was reliable, but I suppose that Ministers ultimately take responsibility for decisions.

Patrick Mercer: I am delighted that the problems with at least one piece of equipment seem to be on the way to being solved, but would the Minister care to comment on replacing the British Army's combat helmet, which provides 40 per cent. less protection than any other helmet in NATO?

Mr. Speaker: Order. That question is far too wide.

Afghanistan

Chris Mullin: What recent discussions he has had with international partners regarding extending the mandate of the intervention force in Afghanistan; and if he will make a statement.

Geoff Hoon: The United Kingdom currently contributes about 400 British troops to the international security assistance force, based in Kabul. I have regular discussions with international colleagues about ISAF, including on the continuing need for such a force after the expiry of its current United Nations authorisation on 20 December this year.

Chris Mullin: My I put it to my right hon. Friend that the situation in Afghanistan remains on a knife edge and that, unless ISAF's mandate is extended, there is a danger that Afghanistan will slide back into the sort of chaos that brought the Taliban to power in the first place? What discussions has he had with our allies about extending the mandate as a matter of urgency?

Geoff Hoon: I accept my hon. Friend's observation that there are continuing concerns about security in Afghanistan. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said only in September:
	XI want to make it clear, once again, that we are entirely committed to its reconstruction. We will not desert the Afghan people. We will stick with them until the job . . . is done."—[Official Report, 24 September 2002; Vol. 390, c. 6.]
	That is why we are having detailed discussions, particularly with the United States, on planning how the coalition can further stabilise Afghanistan and, together with other allies, are looking at a range of different possibilities, but I have to tell my hon. Friend and the House that it is rather too early to say what that might involve at this stage.

Keith Simpson: I am sure that all hon. Members will wish to praise the role of the British armed forces in Afghanistan under extremely difficult circumstances, but may I return the Secretary of State to the phrase Xdefence assumptions", which he used in answer to questions from my hon. Friend the Members for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) and for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin)? The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) made the very important point that the situation in Afghanistan is very delicate indeed. Can the right hon. Gentleman perhaps tell the House what contingency plans the Ministry of Defence has to reinforce British troops in Afghanistan if, unfortunately, the situation deteriorates, and whether that will have an adverse impact on the other preparations that the MOD is now making in relation to possible UN or other operations against Iraq?

Geoff Hoon: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his observations about British forces in Afghanistan, but it is only right that we should acknowledge the very considerable contribution made by other allies as well. Clearly, it is not simply for the United Kingdom to respond to any significant deterioration in the situation in Afghanistan. That would involve an effort by the international community, which is very well represented in Kabul and, indeed, in other operations in that country, so were there to be such a situation, we clearly have plans available that would allow the United Kingdom to make a contribution further to secure the situation in Afghanistan. As of today, I am delighted to say that that is not necessary, but it is obviously a matter that we keep under constant review.

David Cairns: Has my right hon. Friend seen reports that it is estimated that this year's poppy harvest in Afghanistan is something like 10 times larger than the harvest in the last year of the Taliban? Even if it is not larger to that degree but has none the less increased, will he assure me that the allied armed forces in Afghanistan are not in any way turning a blind eye to the cultivation of this crop as a quid pro quo for keeping warring factions together? He knows as well as I do that the crop will inevitably find its way on to the streets of his constituency and mine as heroin.

Geoff Hoon: I certainly share my hon. Friend's concern about the poppy harvest. I am not an expert on poppy cultivation, but I anticipate that he is rather ahead of things as regards the harvest. I am aware of speculation about the prospects for this year's production, and I assure him that we and other members of the international community keep that under review and are discussing urgently the steps that can be taken to limit the amount that is produced in Afghanistan.

Peter Tapsell: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that last December he gave me a categorical assurance that British troops would only be stationed in Afghanistan for a very short period? When I expressed scepticism about that, and predicted that they would remain for a very much longer period, he was firm in telling me that I was wrong. Why has the policy been changed?

Geoff Hoon: There has been no change in the policy. As I recall, the hon. Gentleman asked me about the duration of war-fighting operations, and I was able to tell him that those forces will be there for as long as necessary. We do not have significant numbers of British troops on the ground involved in war-fighting operations, and our contribution to the international security assistance force, as I explained to the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, is significantly lower numerically than that of several other countries. That is why it is important that we recognise the contribution made by allies.

Joan Ruddock: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the United States has just withdrawn reconstruction aid from Masar-e-Sharif because it considers it too dangerous to allow its personnel to operate in that area? In view of that, can he explain to me what the coalition means by saying that it wishes to extend the ISAF effect outside Kabul?

Geoff Hoon: That is simply shorthand for the kinds of discussions that I indicated are taking place, involving the United Kingdom and other allies, about how best to secure other parts of Afghanistan away from Kabul. The idea is to find means of working with the transitional Administration to ensure that the difficulties that I know have been a recurrent feature of Masar are not repeated elsewhere.

Bob Spink: May I take the Secretary of State back four questions, and confirm that the Opposition support the operations in Afghanistan? We believe that there should be more NATO involvement in the ISAF operations. What action is he taking to ensure greater involvement of NATO?

Geoff Hoon: ISAF is a UN peacekeeping operation, and, for the moment, I do not anticipate that there need be NATO involvement. The countries that supply troops to the ISAF operation are, by and large, members of NATO, although not exclusively so. Provided that there is sufficient support from the international community to maintain ISAF in its present form up to 20 December—and beyond, should the UN consider it necessary—I am content that we would not need NATO support for that particular operation.

Naval Bases

Syd Rapson: If he will make a statement on partnering services at each navalbase.

Adam Ingram: New commercial partnering arrangements were introduced at the three naval bases at Devonport, Portsmouth and on the Clyde in September this year, under contracts awarded to Devonport Management Ltd., Fleet Support Ltd. and Babcock Naval Services. The new arrangements will deliver engineering support, waterfront services and logistics, estates and facilities management at each of the naval bases more efficiently and effectively, and at a lower cost to the taxpayer.

Syd Rapson: I thank the Minister for the sensitive way in which he personally intervened in the Portsmouth partnering services scheme, which smoothed the way tremendously. May I ask a question about cross-platform partnering services? Will there be any adverse effects on those services when the Defence Logistics Organisation reverts from a provider to a decider?

Adam Ingram: I thank my hon. Friend for saying that I handled the matter sensitively—I will put that fact on my CV because it may come as a surprise to some people.
	My hon. Friend has alighted on an important change in the delivery of DLO services to the front line. The DLO will move from being a provider to a decider organisation, and the pace of that change will depend on a number of factors. We do not expect to take a Xone size fits all" approach to complex logistics support requirements. Our decisions will be driven by sound reasoning about what is best overall, taking into account the impact of changing arrangements and the benefits to be gained in effectiveness and efficiency. The change will inevitably have an impact on the civilian work force, but as a responsible employer we will always seek to look after the best interests of our civilian employees, just as we did when we made changes to naval base delivery.

Firefighting Training

Hugo Swire: How many service personnel have been trained for firefighting duties.

Adam Ingram: This deployment involves more than 19,000 service personnel from all three services. About 3,000 Royal Navy personnel, 7,700 Army personnel and 2,300 RAF personnel have been trained. A further 6,500 personnel will be engaged in administrative, security, command-and-control and other duties, drawing on normal armed forces skills and training.

Hugo Swire: Given the uncertain situation in Northern Ireland and the need to prepare for possible action in Iraq, as evidenced by the desertisation of two tank brigades in Germany, has the Minister assessed the loss of real training time caused by the need for firefighting training? How and when will that critical training be made up?

Adam Ingram: That is an impossible question because we do not know whether there will be a strike. I understand that a decision is pending, but talks continue, and we all hope that they will lead to a resolution of the dispute. All efforts should be made towards that. As to the numbers that we have deployed in anticipation of a dispute over the next few months, there must be a knock-on effect for the training regime, and the longer the strike runs, the greater the effect will be. We must constantly review the situation; over time it will create problems for effective delivery and for other missions in which we may be called on to participate.

John Robertson: Will my right hon. Friend ignore Opposition calls for firefighters in the services to cross the Fire Brigades Union picket lines, and does he agree that if they did so it would only inflame an already serious situation?

Adam Ingram: At this stage, that is a wise judgment. As we move, hopefully, towards a negotiated settlement, it is better to try to keep down the temperature of the dispute. Again, however, the question is impossible because we do not know the shape, format and length of the dispute and, therefore, the nature of our response.

Peter Viggers: We can all understand that while negotiations continue between the Government and the union, it is tactful not to give service personnel access to the latest firefighting equipment available in the fire stations. Does the Minister accept, however, that in the interests of public safety there will come a point at which service personnel must be given access to the best equipment?

Adam Ingram: The hon. Gentleman makes an important recognition in saying that the decision is tactful, but, more than that, it is sensible. This is both a logistics issue and a training issue. I know that there is a debate about how long it takes to train people, but we have committed large numbers of service personnel to the Green Goddess delivery system because of the short training required. If we decide to use sophisticated equipment for which longer training is needed, where will we get the personnel from? If we use the same pool of people, they will have to be taken out of service to be trained, so the logistics make it impractical to use that equipment. All these matters have to be kept under review, but there are no plans to do as the hon. Gentleman suggested.

Bob Russell: Putting the fire dispute to one side, does the Minister agree that it would be in the national interest if one or two regiments of the British Army were trained to use the sophisticated modern fire appliances to create a reservoir of trained personnel for firefighting and other emergency duties in a national emergency?

Adam Ingram: No, I do not take the view that that is sensible because we do not want to appear as though we are always prepared, rather than forced, to participate. There is also the problem of skill fade. A sizeable number could be trained for an eventuality, but it is 25 years since the Green Goddesses were last called out. [Interruption.] I appreciate that we had to deploy them in regional strikes.
	We would have to consider where the regiments would be based. It would also be unfair on the personnel who were trained as permanent firefighters because that is not why they joined the armed forces, irrespective of which branch they represent. Nevertheless, in terms of emergency support for the community, we always stand ready to meet that immediate demand if and when it arises.

Angus Robertson: The Minister will be aware that aid to the civil power role played by service personnel in areas with a large military presence, such as my own, is significant. What assessment has been made of the impact of firefighting duties on the operational role at bases including RAF Kinloss and RAF Lossiemouth? What assessment has the Ministry of Defence made of what would happen if the defence fire service is privatised should a similar problem or industrial action arise?

Adam Ingram: As my right hon. Friend muttered to me, XOr if Scotland becomes independent." Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should explore his policy on the armed forces—out of NATO, out of the United Kingdom and out of many international coalitions. In those circumstances, defence personnel may have more time to participate in that activity in Scotland, but they are not there to do that; they are there to defend the realm.
	There is an impact on operational capability as a consequence of firefighting duties. I have answered a number of parliamentary questions on that, including in response to the matter raised by the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire). I said that there is also an impact on training. There is no point in hiding that reality, which we continue to assess as the situation develops.

Dennis Skinner: Is the Minister aware that I agree with him about not inflaming the industrial situation while negotiations continue? The Tories say that we should allow someone else to use the appliances, but the strike is not continuous. The firefighters will want to use the same appliances, which will be impossible after their eight days have concluded. Not only would the Tory approach inflame the situation: it would be practical nonsense as well.

Adam Ingram: I tried to explain some of the practical difficulties that would arise from that approach. Hopefully my hon. Friend agrees with my assessment of that. I certainly tend to agree with his presentation of the problem.

Missile Defence

Richard Ottaway: What discussions he has had with the United States Administration on missile defence since July.

Geoff Hoon: I last discussed missile defence issues with the United States Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, at our meeting in Washington on 11 September of this year.

Richard Ottaway: The Secretary of State will be well aware of the huge amount of interest in the project and its relevance to our country's strategic defence. As his research is reaching an advanced stage, can he give an idea of which bases in the UK will be involved in the project and which of our European partners are on board?

Geoff Hoon: I set out the Government's position—clearly, I hope—to the House on 17 October. I said that there was not yet a specific request for any particular bases in the UK and that the Government would agree to such a request only if we were satisfied that the overall security of the UK and the alliance would be enhanced. The hon. Gentleman's question is premature. As I said, we propose to set out for the benefit of hon. Members and others the necessary technical and policy considerations before returning to the House for a further discussion on that subject.

Malcolm Savidge: Will my right hon. Friend say whether, before British taxpayers' money is committed to that vastly expensive, technologically dubious protection against something that the MOD has assessed as a remote threat, Parliament will be permitted to debate and vote on the issue?

Geoff Hoon: I said on 17 October that the House would have the opportunity to discuss the material I just mentioned, which is currently being prepared within the Ministry of Defence. That is as far as I am prepared to go at this stage.

Army Weapons

Gary Streeter: What recent assessment he has made of the reliability of British Army weapons.

Adam Ingram: All weapons are continually assessed to ensure that they meet set reliability standards. If or when problems are reported, they are investigated immediately and action is taken as necessary.

Gary Streeter: I thank the Minister for his reply. Is he aware that on recent exercises in Canada it was discovered that the Challenger 2 tank consistently broke down and there were difficulties with getting repairs and supplies, and that many of the men who rely on it for their lives have now lost confidence in that piece of equipment? What will he do about that, and will he assure the House that, before our tank regiments are sent into Iraq or anywhere else, they will have equipment on which they can rely?

Adam Ingram: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave a few moments ago. We have to learn the lessons that may emerge from any given training scenario. Saif Sareea is an example of an exercise on which we learned some extremely valuable lessons. That is the purpose of training exercises, followed by the search for solutions, and it is the best way to build confidence. The SA80 is a good example of the process: we discovered issues relating to the rifle that needed to be dealt with, and that is what we did. We will apply that across the board to all pieces of equipment that are crucial to our front-line activities.

Reservists (Call-up)

Tam Dalyell: If he will make a statement on his plans for call-up of reservists.

Geoff Hoon: As I said earlier today in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Harry Cohen), a call-out order was made on 14 October 2002 in support of operations in Afghanistan and related operations against international terrorism. That was purely for the continuation of existing operations. In line with our policy since the strategic defence review, any substantial new operation would require support from reservists. That would be the subject of a separate call-out order at the appropriate time.

Tam Dalyell: Given that this has been not exactly the most glorious week in the history of the royal prerogative, and given that for a precedent relating to my right hon. Friend's previous answer we have to go back to the Korean war, if there is to be a call-up of reservists would it not at least be wise to come to the House of Commons—regardless of the royal prerogative—to seek a substantive motion of agreement by the House to the call-up of reservists?

Geoff Hoon: As I said earlier when asked the same question, there is a well-established procedure in the House applying to the call-out of reserves, governed by an Act of Parliament. That requires the House to be informed in the usual way. My hon. Friend has long experience of the procedures of the House, so if he wants to debate the matter when the order is laid, he will, no doubt, find an opportunity to do so.

John Gummer: I wonder whether the Secretary of State will think again about his response. There is considerable doubt and concern about the possible purpose of recalling the reservists. The House needs to be properly informed and to have every opportunity to discuss any issue that might involve reserve personnel. I therefore ask the right hon. Gentleman to think again and to ensure that all of us have a proper chance to discuss that issue, which is not as open and closed as many in the past have been.

Geoff Hoon: To the best of my knowledge, the right hon. Gentleman was a member of the Cabinet when the relevant Act of Parliament passed through the House—off the top of my head, I believe it was in 1996. Existing procedures are therefore the responsibility not only of the current Government, but of that previous Government. That legislation, which builds on previous practice both of Governments and of the House, is something with which the right hon. Gentleman is entirely familiar. The procedure is well-established and does not require to be changed at this stage.

Balkans

John Randall: If he will make a statement on operations in the Balkans.

Adam Ingram: In response to the improved security situation in the Balkans, NATO is implementing significant changes to its peacekeeping forces. The United Kingdom will continue to play a significant part in peacekeeping operations through its contribution, which will include a battle group in Bosnia and a light-role battalion in Kosovo.

John Randall: I thank the Minister for that reply.
	As our commitment in the Balkans seems to be winding down in respect of regular forces, is the Minister's plan to use some of the reservists in a peacekeeping role?

Adam Ingram: Already about 10 per cent. of those currently in use are reservists. The hon. Gentleman's question suggests that we are running down the numbers because of some other pressure point. That is not the case. It is sensible planning as we move the countries that make up the Balkans towards a more normal type of society. Clearly, the military presence would decline over time anyway, but use can be made of the Territorial Army in those circumstances. That is good for them and for the country.

Points of Order

David Winnick: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would it not be appropriate for the Solicitor-General to make a statement to the House about the case that collapsed last Friday? It is my view, shared by a number of colleagues, that there are relevant questions for Parliament to ask: why the case was started in the first place, why it collapsed and in what circumstances, and about all the costs involved. In all the circumstances, I should have hoped that the Solicitor-General would make a statement. I understand that the Prime Minister has answered questions outside Parliament. I do not criticise him for that, as he had a press conference. I hope, therefore, that the Solicitor-General will come to the House, if not today, then on Tuesday, to answer these relevant questions.

Dennis Skinner: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that the case of Paul Burrell has collapsed, in view of the fact that the case should not have proceeded to court if certain people had opened their mouth a lot sooner—I refer to members of the royal family—and in view of the fact that it will cost #1.5 million, should not the Queen have to foot the bill?

Mr. Speaker: In answer to the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), that is not a matter for me. On the point of order from the hon. Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick), the Solicitor-General is a Minister of the Crown, and she can choose to come to the House and make a statement if she so wishes.

Tim Loughton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We are about to move joyfully on to the Adoption and Children Bill. When that Bill was introduced to the House about a year ago, the Secretary of State for Health stated on the front of the Bill that it was compatible with the European convention on human rights. That Bill made no attempt to change the status of people eligible to adopt. Last week, the Joint Committee on Human Rights produced a report on the Bill that is coming back from the Lords today in its amended form, which we are about to debate. That amended Bill returns the Bill to its original form—that is, the status quo of people eligible to adopt. However, the report states that the Bill is now incompatible with the European convention on human rights. The Secretary of State and the Joint Committee cannot both be right. That casts a legal doubt on the compatibility of the Bill. Do you have a ruling on the subject, before we get into the nitty-gritty of the clauses that we shall be debating?

Evan Harris: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your guidance. Since the Joint Committee first considered the Bill as presented by the Secretary of State to the House on Second Reading, there has been a case in South Africa and there has also been European Court jurisprudence in the Fretté case, which was considered by the Joint Committee and which related to articles 8 and 14. If, following that jurisprudence, the Government now agree with the Joint Committee that the Bill in its current form is incompatible, is it not appropriate that there should be a Government amendment on the amendment paper making it compatible with the Human Rights Act, rather than the amendment before us, which is right and proper but relies on Back-Bench Members and Opposition parties to put the Bill in a human rights-compatible form?

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for giving me notice of his point of order. The House is indebted to him for drawing attention to this apparent conflict of opinion, but it is a matter for a debate and not one that I can resolve or rule on.

Harry Cohen: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. During Defence questions, the Secretary of State referred to use of the royal prerogative for the call-out of reservists. Indeed, it might be used for military action as well. That has serious constitutional implications on which I ask you to reflect, especially with regard to whether we could have a debate on using the royal prerogative.

Mr. Speaker: It is not for the Speaker to worry about that.

Tam Dalyell: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. In answer to the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), the Secretary of State for Defence used the words Xwell-established procedure". May I, through you, ask the Clerks to identify that well-established procedure, because I suspect that it was used but once, at the time of the Korean war, by Herbert Morrison in trying to manipulate his colleagues? Could some research be done on the matter, because some of us think—[Interruption.] I did not refer to his grandson; I referred to Herbert Morrison. The sins of a grandfather should not be inflicted on a grandson. Perhaps the Clerks Department could do some research and find out what the well-established procedures actually are in relation to the royal prerogative and reservists.

John Gummer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Let me answer the Father of the House. I have noticed that he is a regular at getting advice from the Clerk of the House, so rather than me asking the Clerk for advice to give to him, perhaps he can go himself.

John Gummer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. If the hon. Gentleman is right in what he just said, I hope that the Chair will reflect—although no doubt it cannot rule on this point—on the fact that it would make the whole of the answer that the Secretary of State gave to me totally otiose.

Mr. Speaker: We now come to the main business.

ADOPTION AND CHILDREN BILL (PROGRAMME) (NO. 5)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Order (28th June 2001),
	That the following provisions shall apply to the Adoption and Children Bill for the purpose of supplementing the Orders of 29th October 2001, 23rd January 2002, 20th March 2002 and 16th May 2002:
	Consideration of Lords Amendments
	1. Proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments shall be completed at today's sitting and shall be brought to a conclusion (so far as not previously concluded) at Ten o'clock.
	2. Those proceedings shall be taken in the order shown in the first column of the following Table and each part of the proceedings shall be brought to a conclusion (so far as not previously concluded) at the time specified in the second column of the Table.
	
		
			 Lords Amendments Time for conclusion of proceedings 
			 Nos. 26, 32 to 36 and 66 8.30 p.m. 
			 Nos. 1 to 25, 27 to 31, 37 to 65 and 67 to 107 10.00 p.m. 
		
	
	Subsequent stages
	3. Any further Message from the Lords may be considered forthwith without any Question put.
	4. Proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall be brought to a conclusion (so far as not previously concluded) one hour after their commencement.
	—[Dan Norris.]
	Question agreed to.

Orders of the Day

Adoption and Children Bill

Lords amendments considered.

Mr. Speaker: I draw the attention of the House to the fact that privilege is involved in Lords amendments Nos. 1, 45 and 47, which are to be considered today. If the House agrees to these Lords amendments, I shall ensure that the appropriate entry is made in the Journal.

Clause 44
	 — 
	Suitability Of Adopters

Lords amendment: No. 26, in clause 44, page 27, line 38, after first Xa" insert Xmarried".

David Hinchliffe: I beg to move, That this House disagrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Speaker: With this we may discuss Lords amendments Nos. 32 to 36 and 66 and motions to disagree thereto, and amendments (a) to (uu) in lieu thereof.

David Hinchliffe: It is no surprise that we have returned to the topic with which the amendments deal. We had a lengthy debate on Report and, having studied in some detail the debate that occurred in the House of Lords, I take the view that the purpose of the original amendment was fundamentally misunderstood and misrepresented in another place. I should like to address my concerns about that misrepresentation of the purposes of the original amendment agreed to by this House.
	I should like again to stress my personal strongly held belief in marriage. I do not want to cover ground that I covered in detail last time we debated the Bill, but I believe that if we had more marriage in society, we would have a much more stable society in which children are happier and perhaps stand a better chance in later life. Perhaps we as a society should spend more time considering how we support and promote marriage.
	I shall set out the key objectives of the amendments. I believe that they will strengthen what is, in my view, an extremely good Bill. I pay tribute to the Minister for the way in which she has steered the measure through its various stages. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is very much behind the proposed legislation and wishes to assist the many children within the care system.
	First, I want to see a good Bill strengthened so that more children within and from the care system are able to live in stable, permanent families. We know that about 5,000 children are in homes awaiting adoptive placements. I hope that the amendments will assist them in the process of obtaining a proper family life.

Desmond Swayne: Has any estimate been made of the number of couples who will come forward to adopt children as a consequence of the amendments but who are currently unwilling to adopt as individuals?

David Hinchliffe: There was an adoption week in 1999. I understand that about 10 per cent. of the inquiries were from unmarried couples who were excluded from the adoption process. I cannot answer the hon. Gentleman's question in detail, as I suspect he anticipated, but I know that in the past, unmarried couples have expressed a significant interest in adoption. That is why many of us feel that a significant number of children and adolescents within the care system could be assisted as a consequence of amending the Bill.

Dari Taylor: Will my hon. Friend acknowledge the work of the Nottinghamshire Catholic Children's Society? It states in a note to me that recognition should be given to the potential family resource provided by unmarried couples. The society has worked in adoption for more than 25 years and has excellent experience. Will my hon. Friend acknowledge the veracity of the society's statement?

David Hinchliffe: I have not seen that information, but it is significant that the society should come forward with such a statement. Some people with a Catholic belief have concerns about the appropriateness of what we seek to do. Many of my friends are Catholics, and they are divided. Some are strongly in support of the amendments' aims and objectives. They understand that the supporters do not wish to undermine the institution of marriage. We are about strengthening children's ability to engage in family life and to benefit from it in the way that most of us in the Chamber have done.
	The amendments seek to widen the adoption pool. The available evidence shows that a significant number of people will be willing to come forward as unmarried partners to offer adoptive placements to children in the care system.
	I am less happy about making the point that we need to relate legislation to the world in which we live. Within the House and elsewhere in wider society, apparently more and more people choose to live in long-term stable relationships without going through the marriage ceremony. I do not defend that necessarily, but I respect the fact that people have the right to take that course if they so wish. Many of my colleagues will be aware of a number of Members who have that form of relationship and who bring up children in stable partnerships without going through the marriage ceremony.

Meg Munn: Is not it true that, generally, adoption law is made every 25 years? Therefore, the measures that we put in place today need to reflect not only current society but how it will change and develop in the next 25 years. It is important to recognise changes in society now.

David Hinchliffe: My hon. Friend is right. I cited figures in our previous debate to show that in 25 years, approximately 20 per cent. of couples will live together without going through a marriage ceremony. I do not defend that trend, but we must live in the real world and understand that, simply because people are not married, it does not mean that they cannot bring up children appropriately in stable relationships. If unmarried parents automatically meant instability, the child welfare organisations and social services would be more involved in removing children from such relationships.

Andrew Selous: What is the hon. Gentleman's response to the statistic that 83 per cent. of cohabitations that do not become marriages break up in 10 years, whereas 60 per cent. of marriages last for life?

David Hinchliffe: I do not want to argue about that figure. Unmarried applicants will go through a rigorous process to ensure that their relationship is stable. As I said in our previous debate, I have a background in adoption and guardian ad litem work. I know of cases of married couples who adopted children and whose marriages subsequently broke down. In many instances, that cannot be predicted. However, the adoption agencies and services have a good track record in examining the strengths or weaknesses of relationships. I shall return to that point, because it was raised in the Lords.

Michael Fabricant: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees that a loving, stable relationship is required. Does he realise that, under current law, an individual could adopt, but that if that individual was in a stable relationship and, God forbid, one of the partners died, the child could be removed from the other adoptive parent? Is not that the cruellest aspect?

David Hinchliffe: That is an important point, which several hon. Members made in our previous debate. In many cases, sometimes of same-sex couples but more frequently of unmarried heterosexual couples, one partner adopts the child. When the adoptive partner dies, the child is legally in a vulnerable position. That was discussed at length in our previous debate. It is an anomaly in the current law and we must bear it in mind, as the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) made clear.
	The amendments to the Lords amendments secure the best interests of children by acknowledging that in some circumstances, they may be served by adoption by unmarried partners. Since 1989, the welfare principle has been at the heart of our legislation on child welfare. There will be general agreement in the House that it has served our children well. In any decision about their well-being, the prime objective must be their best interests throughout their lifetimes. In my view, the Bill as amended in the Lords will not ensure that those best interests are properly covered in specific circumstances.
	I want to consider the main themes of the Lords' anxieties about the amendment that we passed some time ago. I hope that hon. Members have studied the relevant Hansard reports of the Lords proceedings. I do not like to say so, but one theme underpinned the debates: scarcely concealed, crude homophobia. I find that rather sad and worrying in this day and age.
	On Report, my speech on the relevant amendment covered six columns of Hansard. Just two paragraphs of my speech dealt with same-sex adoption, because I believe that the main thrust of our concern should be child welfare, which is where the law has got it wrong.

Jonathan R Shaw: Will my hon. Friend give way?

David Hinchliffe: May I make a bit more progress?
	Having read the Hansard reports, I am puzzled about why so-called gay adoptions dominated their lordships' concerns. It seemed that, for them, the issue boiled down to that one central element. I am reminded of a conversation that I had earlier this year with a recently ennobled Labour peer who entered the House of Lords after the last general election. He told me one evening that, over the year that he had been there, the entire place had seemed to be completely obsessed with sex. As far as he could see, all they ever talked about in the other place was sex. I do not want to go into why that might be so, but it seemed to underpin those debates and to divert attention from more important issues.

Robert Walter: I think that the hon. Gentleman and I agree on a lot in respect of this aspect of the Bill. Does he acknowledge, however, that the Bill would be more acceptable, both in the other place and in the wider country, if we separated the concepts of unmarried couples of different sexes and couples of the same sex? We might thereby get greater acceptance for what we are trying to achieve.

David Hinchliffe: It might be easier for Conservative Members to deal with the matter in that way. I very much respect the hon. Gentleman's position on this issue. We discussed the broad issues when he was on the Health Select Committee, and he was party to the Committee's inquiry into looked-after children, which reinforced the concerns about adoption. Politically, it might be helpful for the Conservatives to separate those two concepts, but I do not think that the distinctions are as clear as he suggests. The way forward is to accept the fact that we are dealing with unmarried partners, who may be heterosexual, homosexual or lesbian.
	Another concern is that people automatically assume that same-sex adoptions will involve homosexuals or lesbians. I know people of the same sex who live together in long-term relationships and who would be offended if they were called homosexuals or lesbians.

Angela Watkinson: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that a child who is brought up by a couple of the same sex would automatically be denied either a father or a mother?

David Hinchliffe: Perhaps I misheard the hon. Lady's question. There are many ideals in society. I worry that some of the people who end up in this place see society as being an ideal, and see their own background as one that applies to everyone else in society. Sadly, that is not the case. I know for a fact that vast numbers of children in the care system would find these debates irrelevant; all that they want is a loving home. It would not matter if the adopters were same-sex, mixed-sex, black, blue or green; those children want a loving family environment. That is where we must start from.
	I was struck by some of the evidence advanced in defence of the Lords' concerns in their debate on same-sex adoptions. One peer referred to an opinion poll that had been carried out in a Labour constituency. The question that had been put to people—a fairly loaded one—was:
	XIf you died would you like your children to be adopted by two homosexual men?"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 October 2002; Vol. 639, c. 884.]
	In response, 81 per cent. of Tory voters, 71 per cent. of Labour voters, and 65 per cent. of Liberal Democrat voters said no. I wonder what the result would have been if the alternative had been proposed—of the children remaining in institutional care for the remainder of their childhood and adolescence, with numerous transient carers and, arguably, a far greater chance of abuse—because that, frankly, is the reality.

Jonathan R Shaw: Does my hon. Friend agree that at least those Tory voters in that constituency had a chance to say what they really feel?

David Hinchliffe: I want to stick to the issues, not be drawn into what may or may not be happening on the other side of the Chamber.

Julian Brazier: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is generous in giving way again. Surely the point that he has just made goes to the heart of the matter. He says that the vast majority of cases involve heterosexual couples. All of them already have the power to adopt, and to adopt jointly, simply by getting married.

David Hinchliffe: I very much respect the hon. Gentleman's commitment to adoption and the work that he has done. He deserves a great deal of credit for the efforts that he has put into this complex area and for pushing the Government on a number of fronts where there was a need for change. I credit him with a lot of achievement, but I disagree with him. When I met my wife, we determined to marry; we both chose to marry. I respect the fact that others may not choose the same course of action—

Jonathan R Shaw: To marry you?

David Hinchliffe: Okay, I shall have a word with my hon. Friend outside later.
	The Lords' concern over same-sex relationships seems to be underpinned by the idea, which was not mentioned, that same-sex couples somehow present a greater risk of sexual abuse to children than heterosexuals. Having worked in social services for many years, I honestly am not sure that that is how it works out. That is not my experience as one who had to deal with—on few occasions, fortunately—children who had been abused in children's homes. By and large, that abuse was heterosexual. Certain myths are doing the rounds in the other place that perhaps underpin their lordships' misunderstanding of what we, I hope, will propose in the Commons.
	The second area that concerns me, and which concerned me about the debate in the Chamber and in respect of the Lords in particular, is the general lack of knowledge of the thorough and skilled processes that are in place to deal with people who apply to adopt. The peers do not seem to understand that there is an extremely thorough and complex process that leads to a large number of applicants being rooted out.

Angela Watkinson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Hinchliffe: No, I have already given way to the hon. Lady.
	Sometimes, applicants are very concerned about being deemed unsuitable to adopt—that happens.
	I give an example that, in one sense, illustrates the ignorance involved. Interestingly, one peer referred to a British study that found that the incidence of child abuse is 33 times higher among children living with the mother and her boyfriend than it is among those living with biological married parents. How can anyone seriously translate and apply such findings on families with fleeting live-in boyfriends to the long-term stable relationships of unmarried partners, which will be strictly required of adoption applicants? I genuinely feel that the Lords fundamentally misunderstood the processes that occur before people are allowed to adopt.
	The other area that came over loud and clear is political correctness.

Graham Brady: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Hinchliffe: No, I have given way several times, and many Members want to speak. I must make progress.
	A great deal of reference was made to the Commons amendments being motivated by political correctness, and I addressed that point when we discussed the matter on Report. The Lords seem to have swallowed hook, line and sinker all the tabloid tales of so-called politically correct social work decisions in adoptions. I have looked at a number of those decisions and I have talked to directors of social services about particular examples that were brought to light by the tabloids. As those directors always say, confidentiality prevents agencies such as theirs from saying why particular applicants are turned down.
	I give an example. Can the House imagine a director of social services telling The Sun, XNo, Mr. X was turned down not as a Tory-voting smoker, but because medical reports from his GP show that he is being treated at a local genito-urinary medicine clinic for syphilis, which was picked up in his relationships with various sexual partners, unknown to his wife."?
	That is the sort of stuff that occasionally emerges. Then we read in the tabloids that a person was turned down because he or she was a smoker, was too fat or was a Tory voter. We read all these stories, and sadly we may not be able to establish the truth; but it is not often to do with political correctness. Sound reasoning lies behind some of the decisions. I suspect that their lordships have fundamentally misunderstood the difficulties that may be involved in defending those decisions.

Graham Brady: The hon. Gentleman made a distinction between a succession of transient live-in boyfriends and a long-term cohabiting couple. Would he care to go a little further, and say when he thinks a relationship should be deemed long-term? That is not in the amendments.

David Hinchliffe: The Department of Health has issued fairly detailed guidance. XTwo years" comes to mind, although the Minister is more familiar with the guidelines than I am. There is certainly a clear requirement in relation to the stability and longevity of relationships, which is why I believe that the existing system is strong enough to ensure that the amendments will work and will benefit children.
	Another theme that came over loud and clear in the House of Lords was the suggestion that the House of Commons was engaging in social engineering in relation to gay relationships and unmarried partners. On 16 October, one peer said that my amendment would
	Xresult in married couples losing their priority".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 October 2002; Vol. 639, c. 896.]
	Who is involved in social engineering? Should it not be the child about whom we are concerned? It seems to me that the House of Lords was focusing on the adoptive applicants rather than the children and their rights.
	Their lordships also feared that our amendments would undermine Church-based adoption agencies. I was interested by what my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor) said about the Catholic Society in support of the amendments.

Liz Blackman: After the Nottinghamshire Catholic Society sent its letter, it gave evidence to the Select Committee; I think my hon. Friend was present. The woman giving evidence said that the society was actively reviewing the issue. It has clearly completed its review, as it has now stated that it does not think that the Bill ought to remain in its present state—as amended by the Lords—and that it should recognise the paramouncy of the needs of the children.

David Hinchliffe: I recall that evidence. The Committee on which we both served heard significant evidence from other agencies suggesting that the Bill should be amended. There was broad support for the Bill, but there was concern about the whole issue of unmarried applicants.
	I felt that the Lords failed completely to take seriously the welfare principle underpinning the Bill. That principle is, I think, the key to an understanding of why so many of us feel that our amendment must be restored. Their lordships presumably had other preoccupations; they did not appear to recognise that if their proposal were accepted, the best interests of a certain number of children—I will not say a significant number, but a certain number—would not be fulfilled.
	I wonder how many of their lordships sat down with children in the care system and asked their views. I have done that, as have several other Members who are present now. Those children fully support the opportunities that would be given to them, and to many other children in care in the future, by our amendment.

Jonathan Djanogly: The founding principle of the Bill is that the child should be of paramount importance in the adoption process—not the parents or the adoptive parents, be they married, not married, heterosexual or, indeed, homosexual. I believe that the proposals to allow adoption by unmarried parents give the wrong answer to the basic question of how we can ensure that more children in need of adoption are adopted.

Kevin Brennan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Jonathan Djanogly: No, I am not going to give way yet. I shall give way later.
	There are more than 50,000 children in care in our country. The problem is not the type of person who can adopt, but our culture of adoption. It is a question not of discrimination against unmarried couples, be they opposite or, indeed, same sex, but of what is best for the child. What will give the child the best chance in the society of today—not the society of the future or the society that some hon. Members would like to see—in which the child will be brought up?

Michael Fabricant: Is my hon. Friend aware that today more than half of all couples under the age of 40 who live together are—rightly or wrongly—not married?

Jonathan Djanogly: I appreciate that, but the incidence of adoption by such people is relatively small. Is the family with married parents still the most appropriate?

Jonathan R Shaw: The hon. Gentleman mentions the evidence that was put before the Special Standing Committee, of which he and I were both members. Of the 30 organisations that presented evidence, 29 approved of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe). What evidence does the hon. Gentleman want? Is that not enough?

Jonathan Djanogly: I am sure that all hon. Members present have received an enormous amount of documentation from any number of organisations that maintains that marriage is the best state for adoptive parents. However, I do not necessarily take the advice of professionals working in adoption as the be all and end all of what is right for society as a whole.
	From my experience, I admit that sometimes personal circumstances—perhaps if a strong foster or other relationship already exists—can mean that it is correct that a person, whether single or gay, or an unmarried couple, should be entitled to adopt. That is what the existing law allows.

Meg Munn: The present adoption law does not entitle anybody to adopt: it entitles people to apply to adopt. The whole point is the need for a rigorous process to ensure that people are fit to be adoptive parents, regardless of their marital status.

Jonathan Djanogly: The hon. Lady has hit on one of the problems with the system and I shall return to it later.
	Some 95 per cent. of adopted children are placed with married couples, because of the way in which the law operates at present. We need to appreciate that the vast majority of adopted children are not adopted as babies.
	Even if it were acceptable that non-marrieds should regularly be able to adopt—which I do not accept—most adopted children will know, by reason of their age, that children normally have parents who are married and not of the same sex. Indeed, only 0.1 per cent. of households are same-sex households.

Evan Harris: The hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) made the point that half of all young couples are not married. Is the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) saying that in some way they are weird and that their children should be considered abnormal?

Jonathan Djanogly: I certainly am not, and for the hon. Gentleman to make that suggestion is outrageous. [Interruption.] Indeed, it is weird.
	Encouragement of non-married adoption will, according to many surveys that right hon. and hon. Members have received, increase the instability of an adopted child and create a stigma.

Hilton Dawson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Jonathan Djanogly: No, I am going to move on.
	Surveys have proved that in such cases children will often keep the identity of their parents a secret, both at school and from their peers. Furthermore, as has been mentioned, couples who cohabit out of marriage are statistically almost twice as likely to separate as those who are married.
	We must appreciate that different parts of the country will or may have different attitudes. That is reflected in the current system, in which most adoptions take place through local authorities. That means that elected, accountable representatives can dictate policy in the area of adoption.

Andrew Lansley: My hon. Friend's point about various parts of the country is important. Under the current arrangements, Cambridgeshire social services—my hon. Friend and I are both Cambridgeshire Members of Parliament—reports:
	XThere remains a shortage of applicants interested and able to provide placements for older children and/or those children with special needs."
	My worry is that I have not heard my hon. Friend say yet how he proposes that the system should change positively for the 25 children in the area who are waiting to find adoptive parents.

Jonathan Djanogly: I thank my hon. Friend for making that point and I will come to it shortly. However, our allowing unmarried people and homosexual couples to adopt will not necessarily address his point. Just because homosexual couples can adopt, it does not follow that more people will want to adopt older children. My hon. Friend's point is valid but not particularly connected.
	Some 85 per cent. of the population are against same-sex couples adopting, and 95 per cent. of children are adopted by married parents. To a great extent, that means that the current system represents what people want. The supporters of the motion to disagree with the Lords' amendment would have us believe that, as the hon. Member for Wakefield said, non-married adoption is necessary to encourage adoptive parents to come forward and broaden the adoption pool. It could be argued that the proposals are the opposite of what is needed. Statistics show that there is no shortage of people who want to adopt. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn) made the important point that it is a question not of who wants to adopt but of who is acceptable to the professionals.

Meg Munn: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Jonathan Djanogly: I shall just finish my point, if the hon. Lady will allow me.
	Last year, only 4,000 children were adopted in this country, of whom only 3,100 came from the 50,000 children in care. The hon. Member for Wakefield said that 5,000 children out of that pool of 50,000 were waiting for adoption. I suggest that the figure should be much higher than 10 per cent.
	I further suggest that accepting the proposals will not widen the pool. We need a new culture of adoption. We need a culture that insists on clinics for adoption as much as on clinics for abortion; that does not discriminate against white parents adopting black children; that stops patronising and blocking the efforts of decent prospective parents; and that does not force them through a system that often demeans and intimidates them and delays applications.
	When the BBC ran a programme on adoption, there were 19,000 inquiries during its first year and 24,000 in the second year. What happened to all those people? Initial research by the BBC showed that most of them seemed to have been put off by local authorities.
	To those people who hold the interests of the child paramount, I say that the proposals to allow same-sex and non-married couples to adopt are misguided. They will not work in the best interests of the child and, importantly, they will miss the root cause of the problem that faces us.

Michael Jabez Foster: We must not allow the prejudice of those, however well-meaning, who oppose adoption by same-sex and unmarried couples to spoil the life chances of so many young people. We must always remember that the issue is not about the rights of potential parents but about the rights of young people languishing in care to be parented.
	I acknowledge that the best option for bringing up children may be a man and a woman in a committed relationship, which will often mean marriage, but to suggest that marriage is the only relationship that will provide a satisfactory outcome is patent nonsense. I was brought up by my mother alone and although a father figure in the household might have been desirable—my mother always thought so—it is for others to judge whether she made a success of the venture.
	In respect of the proposals, however, there is clearly prejudice against homosexuality, with the suggestion that same-sex couples are somehow damaging to the charges whom they seek to adopt. There is only one basis for such a belief. It is certainly not of the making of the individuals involved; it relates only to the prejudice created in society by some of those who oppose the provision—the homophobia that is so obvious in the other place.

Andrew Selous: Like the hon. Gentleman, I wholly abhor any form of homophobia; I want no truck with that. However, a Department of Health-funded study found that the average length of a close homosexual relationship is only 21 months. Is not that deeply worrying as regards the lifetime of commitment needed for a damaged child?

Michael Jabez Foster: That is precisely why such couples are unlikely to succeed in an application. Surely, we must have some confidence in the professionals who make such judgments. It is not for us as Members of Parliament to take on that responsibility, but we must offer options. That is what the proposals do.

Julian Brazier: The hon. Gentleman says that we should trust the professionals, but the whole reason for the framing of the Government's initiative—part of which is formed by the Bill—was because professional practice in a large number of local authorities was so completely dismal. Many of them failed to achieve even a 1 per cent. adoption rate for children in care.

Michael Jabez Foster: That depends on the particular area. The record of my county, East Sussex, is relatively good. As hon. Members have pointed out, we do not know about the reasons for the refusal of adoption applications. There may be—and usually are—good reasons, but without knowing the facts, we cannot tell. I certainly do not agree that only adopters from the same ethnic background and so on should be considered, but that is a separate issue from the one that we are debating.
	The bigotry against homosexuality and against couples who want to provide for young children has permeated throughout society because of what is being said. That has created prejudice that attaches not only to couples but to the charges whom they might want to take on.
	It is true that many opponents acknowledge the right of individuals to live as they wish, but they simply consider that placing the precious lives of children in such a situation is wrong. I would go so far as to accept that, although this is not necessarily the case, the best chance of a successful adoption may be with a married couple including a mother and a father. That is in the main nature's way and, therefore, must have the greatest chance of success.
	My wife Rosemary and I have two adopted sons, Damien and Luke, who have been a great joy to us. I hope that we have provided the stability in their lives that stereotype adopters can perhaps best and most easily provide. However, the issue is not who are the best adopters; this is not a competition, but a market. It is a fact that there are young people, many with disabilities and other challenges, who are not easily adoptable in terms of the stereotype husband and wife family, so if there are others who do feel the responsibility to take on more challenging youngsters, why should not the youngsters be given that opportunity?
	We really must not allow the perceived best to become the enemy of the good. We all know that young people who spend their lives in residential care suffer significantly greater challenges in their adult life than others who are brought up in their natural homes or in adoptive relationships. The figures speak for themselves.
	Of course it is not surprising that youngsters whom society has rejected, at least to the extent that no one wanted them as part of their families, reject society in turn. I ask those who oppose this humanitarian piece of legislation to search their conscience as to the reasons why they oppose it.
	I understand the deep-seated religious conviction of some of my constituents, who have written to me about their belief that homosexuality and relationships outside wedlock are wrong, but, even if that is their belief, I would ask them two questions. Do they in all honesty believe that the damage to a child in being brought up in what is still today a non-orthodox family is more damaging than being brought up in residential care? Is being in a family that is not the norm more damaging than not being in a family at all?
	We may be right or wrong that the wife-husband married partnership is the best option for the placement of a child in most circumstances, but, again, that is not the issue. The issue is, as I say, choosing between an orthodox family perhaps and none at all.
	I do however believe that some of those who have written to me make the very good point—it was made a moment ago by the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier)—that, sometimes, children are denied the opportunity to join families because families from their ethnic or religious backgrounds cannot be found. That is wrong. I would tell the adoption authorities that exercise that sort of policy that they, like those who oppose the provision today, need to put the children first. In my view, the ability to love and nurture a child has little to do with one's colour, creed or, for that matter, sexual orientation.
	In conclusion, I would add that the present provisions do not prevent children from being brought up in homosexual relationships, as has been stated already. A single person who is already permitted to adopt may well have a hidden same-sex or unmarried partner or acquire one subsequently and, even if discovered, that would not be grounds for unravelling an adoption or removing the child from the parent's care. The changes that I support simply provide for an open and honest assessment of the suitability of the individuals to adopt rather than a judgment of the individual's sexual orientation or marital preferences.

Tim Loughton: We are at the eleventh hour on what is a really good Bill. We all want it to become law, and it must become law in the interests of many thousands of damaged children throughout our constituencies.
	I very much appreciate the opening comments made in moving the motion by the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe). We may disagree about the motion, but he has always had a close interest in the Bill and given it very strong support in Committee, and I believe that he and I want the same result in the interests of many children. It is the means by which we reach that result on which we may differ, but no one should doubt our sincerity in jointly wanting to achieve it.
	I also want to congratulate the Minister, particularly on many of the improvements that have been made in another place with Government support. Many of us and many people in the adoption world have long fought for the improvements on the retrospective disclosure of information, on fast-tracking for young babies, on advocacy services and on inter-country adoption. All those things have happened in the other place and have greatly improved the Bill, again, with cross-party support. The Minister is to be congratulated on the work that has been done to support that in this place and in the upper House. Many Members have worked very hard since October last year on this Bill, and for long before that on its forerunners. I am very proud of the part played by my team on the Committee, and I am grateful for the responsiveness of the Minister. The Bill has been improved by the proper processes of Parliament: through the good work and expertise of members of the Special Standing Committee, and through the expertise—and especially the legal input—of noble colleagues in another place.
	The improvements that we achieved in the Bill gave greater emphasis to resources for adoption support services, which is essential, and I shall return to that later. It was improved, too, in terms of disclosure of information issues, proper monitoring of inter-country adoptions, the creation of special guardianship orders, Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service support and overhauling the entire appeal system and court procedures on placement. The fact is, however, that the amendments under discussion are neither relevant to nor contingent on any of the improvements that have been added to the Bill, yet we are in danger of getting hung up on the single ancillary issue of unmarried adoption, which now threatens to wreck the Bill or even lead to losing it. What a disservice that will be to thousands of children who are desperately looking for homes.
	This is a contentious issue—none of us would deny that. Whatever our side of the argument, we can all admit that the unmarried status issue is contentious, yet it is not fundamental to the Bill. It was not in the original Bill on Second Reading, the Prime Minister's adoption review, the White Paper on adoption or a Government manifesto commitment.

Kevin Brennan: If the amendment is not fundamental to the Bill, and if it is a contentious issue—and for many Members an issue of conscience—why is a three-line Whip being imposed on the Opposition?

Tim Loughton: I will explain why we need to separate these issues, because, as far as we are concerned—as I said just now—the whole Bill is about the welfare of the child and the rights of the child. It is not about the rights of adopters of any shape or size—

Meg Munn: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Loughton: If the hon. Lady will allow me, I shall answer one intervention at a time.
	We are in danger of confusing the two issues—I have referred previously to the provision being hijacked—and it is in the interests of pushing the Bill through, with all the good additions to it in the interests of children, that they are kept separate. That is why we are pushing for the three-line Whip to oppose the objections to the amendments.

Meg Munn: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that far too many children who are currently waiting for adopters are unlikely to be able to be placed with adopters? If so, will he tell the House what other clauses in the Bill will significantly increase the number of prospective adopters who are interested in taking on children who desperately need homes?

Tim Loughton: I shall address precisely that point. These amendments, of course, do not necessarily add prospective adopters—indeed, new prospective adopters may be vying for the very same prospective adoptee children.

Jonathan R Shaw: rose—

Tim Loughton: I shall give way once more, and then I would like to make some progress, as, otherwise, we may be here for a long time.

Jonathan R Shaw: The hon. Gentleman said that the amendment was not in the original Bill, but does he agree that one of the purposes of having a Special Standing Committee is to weigh up all the evidence and listen to all those involved in the adoption process? As I said previously, 29 of the 30 agencies, which are of different persuasions, agreed with the proposals. The hon. Gentleman uttered not one word on the issue during the debate in Standing Committee.

Tim Loughton: If the purpose of the Special Standing Committee was to inform the debate, which it essentially was, and if the evidence in one direction was so overwhelming, one can ask why the Government have not adopted the recommendations and why the amendments, which are again having to be moved by Back Benchers, are not Government amendments. The Government do not have a line on this policy, so the hon. Gentleman could direct his question to his Front-Bench colleagues.

Michael Portillo: I want to press my hon. Friend on this point because he began his speech by referring to the sincerity of Members who have contributed to the debate. I thought that sincerity shone out of the speeches by the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) and my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly), and that is what makes this a remarkable debate and a great House of Commons occasion. Does my hon. Friend remember, on the last day of the Conservative party conference, hearing a speech that included the statement:
	XWe must first understand the way life in Britain is lived today, and not the way it was lived twenty years ago"?
	Given that sentiment and the range of sincere opinions, will my hon. Friend return to the reason for the three-line whip?

Tim Loughton: I do not disagree with my right hon. Friend's remarks. If he will give me the opportunity to shine out, I will tell him exactly why we are separating the subjects of debate and why the line that we are taking is centred exclusively on the welfare of children, not on the supposed rights of potential adopters of any description.
	I ask the House, in the interests of the Bill, to put to one side the issue of unmarried adopters, with the prospect of having plenty of ways to revisit it and debate it on its merits in other legislation, perhaps as part of a review of civil registration of relationships, to which I shall return in a moment.
	Let me set down some markers. We have all agreed that we want the Bill, and we want to increase the number of people who come forward as potential adopters and the number of those who become adoptive parents. There is some confusion about the figures, but I believe that 3,100 looked-after children were adopted last year. This year, the figure is likely to increase to 3,800, and we seem to be well on the way to hitting the target of 5,000 and to achieving the increase of at least 40 per cent. which was requested by the Government and to which we all agreed.
	We all—perhaps, given his comments on Report, with the exception of the Liberal Democrat health spokesman—accept that in an ideal world a mother and father figure is best, although not always achievable and not always entirely appropriate when dealing with certain very damaged children. We need to pay special attention to ensure that adoptive placements have as high a chance as possible of being a stable environment to give damaged children a second chance. The state usually makes a poor parent, but it has an obligation to make sure that looked-after children have the best chance of a stable upbringing.
	No one is suggesting that we should move backwards from the status quo of married and single people qualifying for adoption, as set down in the 1967 convention to which we are still a signatory and the Adoption Act 1976. It is already permissible for single people, regardless of their sexuality or partnership arrangements, to adopt where they are deemed suitable on their own merits.

Hilton Dawson: I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument and I respect his commitment to the needs of children, but how can he argue that it is desirable for one member of a couple to adopt a child but not two members of that partnership? How can that be in the interests of stability or the best future for children?

Tim Loughton: I am not going over the figures on stability again, but as it stands unmarried couples do not have a legal entity. The thrust of my argument is that we are pre-empting a debate on, and changes to, legislation that gives them a degree of legal entity. That is a strong point to consider.
	Clause I sets out that the interests and the welfare of the child are paramount. The only rights we are talking about are those of damaged children to expect a decent opportunity for a second chance of growing up in a decent and stable family environment, and those of birth parents to expect proper due processes under the law. That was the intention and detail of the Bill first proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) when she introduced her Adoption Bill in the last Parliament. As I think we have all agreed, however, there is no such thing as a right to adopt. I would gladly participate in a debate on the status of unmarried people, but that is for another day and another piece of legislation.

Liz Blackman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Loughton: I want to make a little progress first because I have given way many times.
	Conservatives subscribe to all the above and have supported the Bill throughout. I remind the House that we are here because of a vote in another place by Conservative peers with the cross-party alliance of 23 Labour peers, 46 Cross-Benchers, two Ulster Unionists, two bishops and three others. A total of 196 peers voted for the amendments with just seven Conservative peers voting against.
	Regardless of their views, however, Members of the upper House had other reasons for which they were even more entitled to object to the legislation. The measure was not in the original Bill. It was changed by Back-Bench amendments and the Government have not yet shown their hand, although on past form Health Ministers have voted to back the amendments. Those amendments contravene the 1967 convention on adoption. The Government have given no sign that they want to rescind our membership of that or renegotiate its terms for everyone. We have all been labouring under the misconception that the Government are reviewing civil partnership law, including related adoption issues, and that nothing will be done to prejudge or circumvent that. In essence, the Lords voted to return the Bill to the status quo, which the Government had not said it was their intention to change.
	Much rubbish has been spouted in the press about the Bill, none more so, perhaps, than a highly ill-informed piece in The Times last month by Mary Ann Sieghart which lambasted Conservatives for opposing the expansion of the right to adopt. That article fundamentally misunderstood the nature of adoption. There is no such thing as a right to adopt. I have no right under any article of European convention or any personal moral code to expect to take over responsibility and control of another human being's life in the same way that I can expect to exercise my right to vote or to have my private and family life respected. It is not a matter of opposing the change out of a bizarre wish to condemn more children to languish in care in the name of family values, as Ms Sieghart absurdly puts it. But to suggest in isolation that simply not enough prospective adopters are coming forward and that the only way to expand the pool enormously is to change the main criteria, is patently to ignore reality and the facts.
	I want to address the real issues that arose from deliberations in this House and another place on the status of unmarried adopters. I want to consider widening the pool, the current obstructions to adoption inherent in the system and the legal implications of moving from marriage as a benchmark in law to a system of flat equality. That will lead me on to the Joint Committee on Human Rights before dealing with the interesting point raised by the noble Lord Alli in another place.

Kevin Brennan: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is being generous in giving way. Does he accept that there is agreement throughout the House that the issue has nothing to do with the right to adopt, but that his position has everything to do with denying certain individuals the right to apply to adopt?

Tim Loughton: The hon. Gentleman knows that people already have the right to apply; it is the form of assessment that is to be debated.
	To return to the categories I have just outlined, I do not want to get bogged down in trading statistics and dubious research. I start from the premise that although marriage is not a dead cert, by all accounts it offers the best probability of a stable home for an adopted child. Adoption can often be worse than care if it breaks down—we are not dealing with a one-way street. Furthermore, my remarks are based on the rough premise presented by the figures from the Office for National Statistics: that cohabiting couples are more likely—by whatever margin we care to state—to split up.
	I agree with the words spoken by the current Foreign Secretary when he was Home Secretary:
	XChildren in my judgment, and I think it's the judgment of almost everyone including single parents, are best brought up where you have two natural parents in a stable relationship."
	The Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), said in the Special Standing Committee:
	XThe adoption law review, when considering this issue, concluded that joint adoption should remain limited to married couples on the grounds that adoption by a married couple was more likely to provide the stability and security that the child needed because married couples have made a joint, publicly recognised, legal commitment to each other . . . There is no provision in law to protect the child's interests when unmarried couples separate."—[Official Report, Special Standing Committee, 29 November 2001; c. 383.]

Andrew Lansley: On the question of the stability of an adoption placement, I should like to put the following point to my hon. Friend. Although I do not disagree with him about the general proposition that married circumstances offer children a better home, success depends on the individual decisions on placement and the characteristics of the home. Given that 95 per cent. of current adoption placements are with married couples, 20 per cent., on average, will end in disruption. What is critical is the ability to find lasting, permanent, loving homes for children.

Tim Loughton: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. No adoption relationship can be guaranteed to be perfect, whether the adoption is made by a married couple or by a single person who is in some form of unmarried relationship. Nothing is foolproof. What we have to explore is how to make the whole system more likely to work. That is what the Bill is really about, but it is being ignored because of the side issue.
	On the question of how to widen the pool, there is some confusion about whether enough people are coming forward to adopt, as the numbers of those applying to become adoptive parents are slanted towards the shiny babies—the relatively problem-free young children, rather than the older, problem children. There is no evidence that non-married couples are better equipped to take on children with complex problems. In any case, as the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw) said in previous debates, there is no queue of unmarried couples waiting to become adoptive parents. Our first objective should be to steer existing applicants toward more challenging problem children.

Meg Munn: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Loughton: I have given way a lot, and I want to make progress, so I will not give way to the hon. Lady; otherwise, people will complain that they were unable to speak in the debate.
	The people most likely to adopt problem children are surely those who are already putting themselves forward as prospective adopters. Our second objective must be to recruit prospective adopters from under-represented groups, especially ethnic minorities, from whom far more prospective adopters are needed. Our third and biggest objective must be to expand the pool from those who are currently able to adopt—married couples.

Meg Munn: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Loughton: I shall not give way. I will make some progress and give way later.
	Currently, about 3,100 children a year are adopted. It is said that at least 5,000 children a year need to be adopted, so there is a shortfall—these are very rough figures—of 1,900. If more children have been adopted this year, that figure will be lower. In this country at the moment there are 11 million married couples. So we need 1,900 couples to adopt one of those children each. Even if there is a rejection rate on the ground of suitability of something like 90 per cent., one in 10 people who come forward will end up adopting a child. I do not believe that the rejection rate is anything like that, but even if it were, we would need 19,000 married couples to offer to adopt. That represents 0.17 per cent. of the entire married couples pool in the country at the moment. Indeed, we are not short of new raw material, as 268,000 marriages occurred last year and for once we are seeing a slight increase in the number of people marrying.
	One of the largest increases in a group of the population has been in the number of single people living alone. There are forecasts of increases in the number of single men from 7.1 million to 8.5 million, and in the number of single women from 5.8 million to 7 million over the next 10 years. So there is no potential for a numbers problem. There may be such potential in the numbers coming through at the moment, but the pool is vast enough as it is.
	Are we seriously saying that we cannot widen the pool of potential adopters across the spectrum, from shiny new babies to behaviourally challenged teenagers, and that we are not confident enough of improving the strike rate of 99.83 per cent. of married couples who do not end up adopting without changing the qualifications criteria to open up the pool to unmarried couples? Does that not suggest that we have completely and utterly wasted our time on this Bill over the past year? Are we really saying that improvements in adoption support services, special guardianship orders, the adopted children register, the streamlining of court procedures on placements and the overhauling of the appeals system count for nothing? I do not believe that for a minute. I have rather more faith in this Bill than Labour Members appear to suggest by concentrating on just this one item.

Julian Brazier: My hon. Friend is making a powerful point by listing those measures. It is a shame, though, that there is not one more measure, which he proposed but which, sadly, was voted down by the Government: to water down the still very strong requirement for an ethnic match, which is one of the strongest barriers to adoption.

Tim Loughton: I will not be churlish by saying what is not in the Bill, because we have an awful lot. However, there are many things on which we still need improvement, as my hon. Friend has said.
	I want to consider obstructions to adoption and why more people are not coming forward and ending up as adoptive parents. Despite some improvements, it is clear, as Lord Hunt said in another place, that
	XMany of the problems that we currently face with the shortage of adoptive parents stem from the number of hurdles that they have to go through, which can lead them to becoming discouraged and finding the process very off-putting."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 December 0200; Vol. 620, c. 843.]
	I agree.
	The evaluation carried out by the British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering during adoption week in 1999 stated:
	XThe most frequently asked question was about the length of time it takes to be approved. Many expressed concern and fears about the process taking many years and being very gruelling, highly intrusive and upsetting."
	BAAF identified a need for reassurance from agencies and for ease of contacting such agencies and getting information. It indicated a lack of responsiveness from some social services departments, and staff shortages that led to the closure of waiting lists for assessments.
	The evaluation also noted a big differential in adoption rates around the country—ranging from 2 per cent. to 10 per cent. in different local authorities. It is clear that adoption is a relatively small-scale activity in many social services departments. Hopefully, the adoption register and better provision for funding trans-authority placements and support services should help to diminish those geographical disparities.
	There has also been a big drop-out rate owing to problems in coping with the possibility of contact arrangements between children and birth families. Again, there are measures in the Bill to alleviate that problem. The BAAF also identified a shortage of personnel for home study assessments, which can drag on for years, and poor administration and non-availability of police checks. We all know about the current problems with the Criminal Records Bureau.
	XBe My Parent" is the paper produced by the British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering, and features children available for adoption. When we see that there have been no inquiries about some of the children, we start to ask why. I pick out one or two examples from this publication. The details provided about the children include details of their ethnic descent. I have no objection to that, but under the heading Xfamily needed", ethnic requirements are specified as well. In the case of a young boy, we read that the ethnic descent is white English, and that the family needed is a white adoptive family. In another case, the child is described as being of Afro-Caribbean Jamaican ethnic descent, and needing a black adoptive family. In a further example, the ethnic descent is given as Afro-Caribbean, and the family needed is described as an Afro-Caribbean two-parent adoptive family. Under XContacts", the paper states that direct contact is planned with the maternal grandmother and half-sister, as well as letterbox contact with the birth parents.
	It strikes me that some of those requirements, set down by I know not whom, are extremely prescriptive and make it very difficult for the right potential adopters to apply or signal an interest in such children. That is part of the problems and obstructions.

Meg Munn: Is it not right that people trying to find adoptive homes for children should seek out the best home that they can, as has been argued? It is right to try to match a child's ethnicity, but it is not right to hold out for a long time for the correct match. To try to meet the child's need in the best way first is absolutely the right thing to do.

Tim Loughton: But on what grounds can the hon. Lady judge that she or I are not equally suitable to adopt one of those young children who are described as requiring somebody of Afro-Caribbean descent to adopt them? It is yet another obstruction.

Meg Munn: rose—

Tim Loughton: No. I shall make progress. Clearly, many attitudes and stereotypes of matching parents with children need to change. Hopefully, that will change under the terms of the Bill.
	I shall deal now with the legal minefield. In November last year, the Minister said in Committee:
	XAdoption by unmarried couples would raise several complex legal questions ... It would be difficult and inappropriate to pre-empt the conclusions of the review"—[Official Report, Special Standing Committee, 29 November 2001; c. 384-85.]
	—that is, the civil partnerships review. We all agreed with that. In Committee, she offered to refer adoptions to the Cabinet Office-led review of civil partnerships, which she did. That committee has not reported yet.
	In a statement in another place two weeks ago, Lord Hunt said:
	XWork is going on in government to carry out an investigation into the implications of establishing a partnership registration scheme. It is presently comprised of cross-departmental work. The Cabinet Office is leading in terms of following up the issues identified. I cannot give a date as regards the conclusions of the review, but work is under way."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 October 2002; Vol. 639, c. 917.]
	It seems that confusion reigns. As my parliamentary question on the progress of the review revealed last week, it has been transferred from the Cabinet Office to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, so it is unclear who is leading the review. Amendments to the Bill would mean that adoption has been singled out to be fast-tracked and would circumvent the civil partnerships review.
	With reference to the 24th report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which was published last week, I said earlier that the Joint Committee and the Secretary of State could not both be right about the human rights compatibility of the status quo, whereby adoption is available only to married couples and single people. It is odd that the ninth report of that Committee stated that the original Bill—the form to which the Lords have returned the present Bill—is compatible.
	There is great legal confusion. The Bill did not raise questions relating to human rights that require to be drawn to the attention of each House. That is what the Committee said on 17 December 2001. What has changed in the meantime? Certainly, the membership of the Committee has not changed. The point is that its 24th report is only an opinion. It will carry no weight in law until it is challenged by the courts, yet the status quo before the Bill's introduction was not challenged in the UK courts.

Evan Harris: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. His first question requires answering. The answer given in the report is that, after the publication of the earlier report, the case of Fretté was dealt with by the European Court of Human Rights. The court found by a majority of four to three that articles 8 and 14 of the European convention on human rights were engaged by the question of the right of unmarried couples to adopt. The further judgment went the other way, but the key point is that there is now jurisprudence to show for the first time that the Human Rights Act 1998 is engaged on the question. In addition, a case arose in South Africa—it also did so between the publication of the two reports—that is relevant to our interpretation of the United Nations convention on the rights of the child.

Tim Loughton: If the hon. Gentleman is patient, I shall mention briefly both the case of Fretté and the de Vos case in South Africa.
	People can take many different legal opinions on the report, which is not helped by factual errors. It dismisses the Fretté v. France case in fairly curt terms. Page 10 refers to a lesbian couple who were refused their challenge to adopt. In fact, Philippe Fretté, the applicant, was a homosexual man who was refused an application for authorisation to adopt by the Paris social services department in May 1993 on the grounds that the applicant
	Xhad no stable maternal role model"
	to offer, and had
	Xdifficulties in envisaging the practical consequences of the upheaval occasioned by the arrival of a child."
	I shall make no comment on that ruling, other than that the finding was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights as recently as February 2002. The court held that there was no right to adopt, and that, accordingly, the state was entitled to draw distinctions between homosexuals and others in the adoption process. Without venturing an opinion, I remind the House that the convention specifically allows state interference in private and family life for moral reasons. The issue of morals falls squarely within the UK's margin of appreciation and democratic process, which both domestic and international courts will respect.
	The report also sets great store by a recent South African case that the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) mentioned—that of du Toit and de Vos v. the Minister for Welfare in South Africa. First, however, South Africa has a vastly bigger problem in terms of a shortage of adopters to match the many orphan children. Secondly, I am led to believe that homosexual rights are specifically enshrined in the South African constitution. The case therefore comes from a very different base, so it is offered at best as a piece of persuasive authority; but I feel that too much of the report reads as advocacy for a cause rather than objective interpretation. It also makes no mention of the European convention on the adoption of children, which was agreed to in 1967 and to which we are still a signatory. Article 6 of that convention limits application to married couples and single people. Have the Government initiated a renegotiation of the terms of the 1967 convention, or are they looking to rescind membership?
	Finally, on the legal process, I should like to mention Lord Alli's interesting and thoughtful intervention in the House of Lords. At column 874, he said:
	XI happily agree with many noble Lords that married couples should have priority over unmarried couples. I also agree that unmarried couples should have priority over gay couples."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 October 2002; Vol. 639, c. 874.]
	Many hon. Members will have sympathy with that view, yet Lord Hunt specifically ruled out such a possibility in July 2002. In any case, legal opinion suggests that such an approach would certainly fall foul of the Human Rights Act 1998 in the UK courts, rather than in Strasbourg. Once marriage is removed as the benchmark for adoption, there will be no midway compromise.
	I remind hon. Members that marriage is defined in the European convention on human rights as marriage between a male and a female. Lord Hooson made an interesting contribution to the debate on the report, in which he referred to the
	Xdanger of the Bill creating a platform of legal equivalents".
	He went on to say:
	XThere is a serious problem if it is not spelled out in the Bill that we in this House and indeed elsewhere in the country do not regard these concepts as legal equivalents." .—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 October 2002; Vol. 639, c. 899.]
	That came from someone who sympathises with adoption by unmarried couples but realises that the proposals, if added to the Bill, would risk a great deal of future trouble. If the amendments are passed, there can be no middle way and no preferences.
	Some will say that everything can be sorted out, in the shape of the adopter assessments on which there is now consultation. We do not know, because the Government started the consultation process only last month on what the assessment procedures should look like. There is no basis on which to take reassurance from the unknown outcome. How will an enduring unmarried relationship be defined? Enduring means something less than life long. If the relationship were any longer, those involved would surely be dead. It is also not clear from the consultation exercise whether the forms to be completed for applying to become adoptive parents even contain a question about marital status.
	There are views in some quarters that the proposed change could lead to a postcode lottery in adoption, with some adoption services operating a proactive equality policy and actively looking for unmarried couples to make up the numbers, rather than relying solely on individual merits. Under the Bill, with these proposals, it would not be open to a mother to object to proposed adopters on the ground that they were unmarried. More interestingly, there is another potential source of challenge to the proposed legislation from an unlikely source—children themselves. There is a legal view that it is arguable that article 8 implies the right for a child to have a mother and a father, and that right may be violated if an adoption order is granted to two parents of the same sex.

Michael Portillo: My hon. Friend is to be congratulated because he has made a truly excellent speech, and that is because he speaks in line with his conscience. I ask him to consider for a moment what the position would be if he found himself in a minority in his party. Would he feel happy if, to vote with his conscience, he had to give up his Front-Bench position? How would he feel about that?

Tim Loughton: I am trying to deal with the substance of the issues that we are debating. I have tried to separate entirely the issue of the child's welfare. I have spent the past 12 months concentrating on the Bill with colleagues, who appeared at every sitting of the Committee and on every occasion when we have debated the measure in this place. We have shown an interest on all aspects of the 140-odd clauses in the Bill.

Liz Blackman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Loughton: I am trying to answer the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo).
	If I thought that there was a middle way in some instances, I might want to entertain the idea of giving someone a preference, or whatever. However, as I have laid out clearly, there is no middle way. In the interests of children and in the interests of avoiding all the legal wrangles, it is right that we promote our objections to the amendments.

Gordon Prentice: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Loughton: No. I shall finish so that hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber can have their say.
	This is not a straightforward matter. There are differing personal views about the suitability of who adopts, and the proposed changes are a legal minefield, with differing legal opinions based on differing and inconclusive research. Yet all this is completely incidental and academic as regards the fundamental reforms to, and improvements of, adoption that are represented by an excellent Bill. Failure to disengage from the arguments and to put them on one side for another day threatens the safe passage of the Bill, thereby sacrificing the chances of thousands of damaged children having a second chance.
	The proposals to reject the amendments are uncertain in law. They would pre-empt the review of civil relationship registration. They would go against the 1967 convention, without any proposals to reform or rescind it. They would pre-empt the adoption assessment process consultation, which has only just started. They would ignore the progress that has already been made, which will be boosted substantially by the bulk of the Bill's provisions in encouraging more than 11 million married couples to come forward.
	We are not considering Government amendments; there is therefore no shame in or problem with the Government's declining to support them, especially in view of all the reviews. We are looking only to return to the status quo of the Government's original Bill.
	Another day should be allocated for sympathetic debates about the rights of unmarried couples, gay or otherwise, and many Conservative Members will want to participate enthusiastically in them. However, today is the day for promoting the rights of damaged children to a decent second chance in life. We must concentrate on genuinely putting the welfare and interests of children at the heart of the Bill. I therefore call on all hon. Members, whatever their personal views, to reject, in the interests of the Bill, the proposal to disagree with the Lords amendments.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I call Jonathan Shaw.

Jonathan R Shaw: Thank you, Mrs.—

Chris Bryant: Thank you, Mrs.?

Jonathan R Shaw: Oh dear, I shall have to put that in my diary. I am sorry; I meant to say, XThank you, Madam Deputy Speaker".
	The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) described the subject of our discussion as a side issue. He characterised widening the pool as a side issue. If so, why are Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen resigning? Why are other members of the shadow Cabinet being given leave of absence so that they do not have to vote on the matter? Why are former contenders for the Conservative party leadership attacking the fact that the party is not allowing a free vote? If it is a side issue, goodness help the hon. Gentleman when a genuine issue jumps up and bites him.
	We are considering a genuine issue that affects children: widening the pool and providing greater opportunities for children who languish in care. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham accused other hon. Members of bandying statistics and proceeded to bandy many statistics himself. He mentioned the 1,900 people who need to come forward. In discussing widening the pool, we need to consider the sort of children for whom they are required come forward. They are not the shining babies to which the hon. Gentleman referred, but older children, who are often boys.
	The British Association for Fostering and Adoption today released figures that show that 1,255 inquiries were made for 430 children in the March 2002 issue of Be My Parent. However, for 129 children, there was not a single inquirer. Those children were boys. When we talk about getting more people to adopt children, we must recognise that those children are difficult boys, who have been physically and sexually abused, and manifest difficult behaviour that requires special people to deal with it.
	An unmarried foster couple might be looking after one of those damaged, abused boys. The amendment would deny them the ability to apply to adopt jointly. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham and the Lords would deny such children the opportunity for a loving, stable relationship.

Julian Brazier: The hon. Gentleman speaks with passion and knowledge, as always. However, the issue is surely not the right to adopt but the best interests of the child. All that the law asks in the best interests of the child is that the couple get married before they adopt.

Jonathan R Shaw: Gay people cannot marry. We are not considering the right to adopt. Surely it is right that the institutions and Parliament do everything possible to ensure children's right to an opportunity for a loving family. No Labour Member who supports my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) claims that people have the right to adopt. We are considering the child's right to the best possible opportunity because the child's needs are paramount. That principle underpins all child care legislation. Those who support the amendments are arguing for that.

Liz Blackman: If we consider the welfare of the child to be paramount, should not a child's right to have a legal relationship with both adoptive parents be central to that welfare?

Jonathan R Shaw: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That point was also made earlier by the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant). If a child is adopted by an unmarried couple, and the adoptive parent dies, the child has to go through the whole process again. Is that in the interests of the child? Of course it is not.

Dari Taylor: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way; he is very generous. Would he say that my loving, caring commitment to my child is a consequence of my marriage vows, or that it comes from my being naturally loving and caring, and has nothing to do with those vows at all?

Jonathan R Shaw: My hon. Friend is indeed a loving and caring person. [Hon. Members: XHear, hear!"] I am doing well at the moment. I have called Madam Deputy Speaker XMrs." and now I have described my hon. Friend as loving and caring.
	My hon. Friend would have been assessed on her ability to provide a stable relationship for her children. That is the basis on which all people are assessed. We cannot be the adoption panel. We should not talk about generalities. We need to talk about specifics, such as those difficult-to-place boys. The adoption panel makes the decisions in those cases, through rigorous assessment.

Jonathan Djanogly: No one here queries the statistics that say that the rate of divorce among unmarried couples is significantly—two or three times—higher than among married couples. That being the case, why should not one parent in an unmarried couple have to take responsibility?

Jonathan R Shaw: The hon. Gentleman sat through the proceedings in Committee, as did I. As I said earlier, 29 out of the 30 agencies that gave evidence to us—

Jonathan Djanogly: Are we going back to that again?

Jonathan R Shaw: We are going back to that again. Those agencies came from right across the child care spectrum. They were not all left-wing child care agencies. We asked them time and again whether these measures would widen the pool, and whether they supported the idea of unmarried couples being able jointly to adopt. And they did. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham quoted the Minister, prior to the amendments previously tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield. My hon. Friend listened to the debate, and was persuaded by the arguments. That is Parliament's role, and Back Benchers have tabled amendments because we believe that the case presented to us was correct. Does not that enhance the Bill and the House of Commons? Of course it does. A charge often levelled by the Conservatives is that the Government ignore the Commons. Now, when Back Benchers have an opportunity to table amendments, which the Government support, they attack my hon. Friend.

Kevin Brennan: Hansard will no doubt record the intervention of the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly), in which he asserted that the rate of divorce among unmarried couples—think about that for a moment—was higher than among married couples. Does not that show the terminal confusion of the hon. Gentleman in relation to this whole issue?

Jonathan R Shaw: I suspect that it is one of the better points that the hon. Gentleman made.

Meg Munn: Did not Professor Tresiliotis, who is probably the foremost adoption expert in this country, make the point very clear when he appeared before the Committee by saying that the marital status of the person adopting has absolutely nothing to do with their suitability to provide a home for a child?

Jonathan R Shaw: My hon. Friend has made her point.
	Children do not choose their parents, but many find themselves in such circumstances that they have a life in care. I worked with children, as I was a social worker for 10 years.

Tim Loughton: Not that one again.

Jonathan R Shaw: That one again—absolutely.
	I recall attending numerous placement meetings where children were waiting for prospective adopters, but one has to say that, too often, no one had come forward or made inquiries about becoming their parent, because the children were those to whom I referred earlier—the older children who were abused and who manifested behaviour problems. We have a once in a generation opportunity to change the law. We began the process in October last year, and we have that opportunity to get it right. I have no problem with the delay, as long as we get it right.
	I support all the agencies that gave evidence before our Special Standing Committee, which was one of the most stimulating processes in which I have been involved in my five years in the House of Commons. It was indeed a learning exercise, and we can reach only one conclusion: we need to widen the pool and provide more opportunity for the children I have spoken about to have a loving family. Whether that is provided by a married couple, unmarried people or people of the same or of different sex, we should not be the judge. We cannot be the adoption panel, as the adoption panels in our constituencies have that specific remit. It is for them to judge whether a particular couple meet the needs of the child, and the child's needs are paramount.

Evan Harris: It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate in support of the amendment tabled and, indeed, championed by the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe). We have already debated the matter, although I fear that we shall rehearse many of the arguments. I am pleased, however, that the three that I set out in May still hold true.
	There are three reasons to ensure that the amendment is passed. First, it is not in the child's best interests when both members of a couple play an equal part in his or her life for only one person to have legal responsibility. The other parent is downgraded to a second-class parent without the power to make vital as well as casual decisions in the child's life that call for a legal guardian. That also poses problems when the adopter is ill or dies, as it leaves no legal relationship between the child and the second and second-class parent. This is especially the case because any residency orders are valid only until the age of 16 or 18 years, depending on the circumstances.
	Secondly, the amendment is important because the current restriction deters many suitable unmarried couples from even applying to adopt, which is bad news for the tens of thousands of children in care who are waiting for suitable adoptive families. Indeed, it is a pleasure, if not a relief, that there is now a human rights opinion that supports that argument. The Joint Committee on Human Rights report says that Earl Howe's amendment
	Xwas advocated at least partly on the ground that one could reliably say, as a general proposition, that children's long-term interests would always be better served by being adopted by a married couple rather than by an unmarried couple, because of the greater stability of married relationships. This argument seems to presuppose that the choice in every case is between those two options. In reality, the choice may be less straightforward . . . For example, one might have to choose between the child being adopted by an unmarried couple, being adopted by a single person, or not being adopted at all. Without a view of the range of options in an individual case, it is hard to say which option would best advance the child's long-term interests. Earl Howe's amendment prevents decision-makers from making that assessment, by cutting out some potentially useful options from the outset. We are therefore not convinced that this will always be the best way of securing the long-term best interests of individual children".
	The amendment
	Xdoes not seem to make the best interests of the child the paramount consideration, as required by article 21"
	of the convention on the rights of the child.
	The third reason for returning these amendments to the Bill is the need to end discrimination against unmarried and same-sex couples. Given the stringent application process and the rigorous assessments that are made on a case-by-case basis, there is no justification for disqualifying a couple from adopting jointly simply because they do not possess a marriage certificate, if they clearly possess all the characteristics that the agency would expect of suitable adoptive parents. The Joint Committee says that it is reasonable for people to be able to apply in those circumstances.
	We have heard arguments about the Fretté case. The court held that although there was a judgment to be made under the European Court of Human Rights, the French authorities were within their margin of appreciation. There were Conservatives on the Joint Committee, and there is no indication that they demurred from that view. Paragraph 24 of the report says
	XAlthough the judgment in Fretté suggests that it might not always be necessary to base a refusal to accept a same-sex couple as adopters on evidence related to an assessment of that particular couple's suitability to adopt, the view of the French authorities in that case (which the Court accepted as within their 'margin of appreciation') was based on doubts about the desirability of same-sex parenting. However, the case provides no support for the view—reflected in Earl Howe's amendment—that it could legitimately be regarded as necessary and proportionate to the aim of protecting the best interests of the child to prevent all unmarried couples, including mixed-sex couples, from being eligible to adopt, regardless of the merits of the individual case."
	Paragraph 25 states
	XThat being so, in our view a blanket ban on unmarried couples being eligible to adopt children would amount to unjustifiable discrimination on the ground of marital status, violating article 14 combined with article 8."

Robert Walter: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his references to both the Committee's report and the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, but does he acknowledge that most European states that recognise same-sex relationships also prohibit same-sex adoption, and that the practice in Europe is to oppose it?

Evan Harris: An interesting aspect of the recent judgment is that this was the first time that such a law had been challenged, or at any rate the first time that the European Court had argued that article 8, on the right to a private life, and article 14, on the right to live without discrimination, taken with another article of the convention, were relevant. Although the judgment was adverse in this case, it is likely that the court will be asked to reconsider, because the judgment was in a sense controversial. I understand that the British judge supported the minority view, of three rather than four, that the action was not proportionate. I think that the subject will be revisited; the Select Committee that we charge with advising us has expressed a clear view.
	People have been deterred from applying to adopt by the existing law, and unhappiness has been engendered by those who have adopted under that law. Only yesterday, The Independent on Sunday cited an opposite-sex couple, Ken Mason and Helga Petzel, who live in Norwich with their adopted son Michael, who is 11. Michael came to live with them when he was seven and was formally adopted by Mr. Mason in May 2000. Mr. Mason is quoted as saying:
	XWe never had any desire to parent a small baby and we felt confident that we could offer a home to a child who had not had all the advantages that we had. Marriage had never been an issue for us: we are not religious and felt it would be hypocritical to make vows before a god we didn't believe in and we also felt that we didn't need the state to ratify our relationship. When we were told that we couldn't jointly adopt, we considered getting married but, in the end, I felt sure that we had what it took without needing to.
	It was clear from the outset that it would make more sense for me to be the legal parent as my work is flexible and Helga is the main breadwinner. But Helga is a fully involved parent and she should have the same rights as I have.
	We have explained the difference in our legal status to Michael and we also said that if marriage was a big issue for him then we would consider it, but he is such a happy and secure child that there has been no need.
	I know there are many unmarried couples who would make great parents but they won't come forward until the law changes."

Meg Munn: The hon. Gentleman is making the crucial point that trust is at the heart of the assessment process for prospective adopters. To suggest that people who do not believe in marriage should marry and, therefore, be hypocritical—as in the example the hon. Gentleman cites—would fundamentally undermine the trust relationship at the beginning of the process. That is not in anybody's interest.

Evan Harris: I see the point that the hon. Lady makes. One cannot claim to be supporting marriage by forcing people into it for other motives, whatever our views on the value of marriage.
	The newspaper gave another example, of a same-sex couple—Sarah Halpern, aged 45 and a teacher, Christine Lee, aged 44 and a housing officer, who live in Manchester as a couple with their adopted daughters, sisters Rachel and Nicola, aged 16 and 14. They were adopted when they were seven and six by Sarah, the single legal parent. Sarah is quoted as saying:
	XWe had been together for five years when we decided we wanted a family. The decision about who was going to be the parent had to be made right at the start and it was really upsetting. We arranged our working hours so that we could be completely equal parents and it was horrible to have to choose between us.
	In the end, it was decided that I would be the adopter because my mother lives much closer."
	That is how people are forced to choose. Sarah continued:
	XWe have had to explain to the girls that Christine had different legal status from me and Nicola was upset to start with because, as she said, 'You're both my mums,' but she understands it now.
	This law has to change—we entered into this together, and the girls are clear that we are both their parents. They had a very difficult start in life and the least they can expect is to have two legal parents and to feel as secure as possible."

Simon Thomas: Does the hon. Gentleman recall the poll tax, when the Conservative party introduced the concept of joint and several liability for cohabiting and unmarried couples? Does he agree that it is curious, if not hypocritical, to argue that when it comes to paying money to the state, unmarried couples are the same as married couples, but when it comes to making a contribution to society by adopting a child, unmarried couples are second-class citizens compared to married couples? Is not that the ultimate hypocrisy? It shows that the heart of the Conservative party lies with money and not with caring for those in need in society.

Evan Harris: That certainly applies to the Conservative party, but the present law is peculiar. When it is a question of assessment for benefits, the present law—presumably supported by the Government, in the absence of a civil partnerships register—means that people are considered married if cohabiting, but are not accorded an equal status with marriage when it comes to the many advantages of, for example, public sector pension schemes. Unmarried couples who live together lose out in both ways.
	The arguments against the amendment have been put mainly by the Conservatives. The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly), who is unfortunately no longer in his place, tried to reassure us by saying that he had been the chair of a social services committee. Given what he said, that was not much reassurance, as my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley) pointed out. He said that 83 per cent. of couples who were not married went on to break up compared with only 40 per cent. of married couples.
	The first point to make, which has been made clear by statisticians and others who have done research in this area, is that we are not comparing like with like. People who do not believe that they will remain with their partner for a lifetime are more likely to be in the group of those who do not get married, because marriage involves a public commitment of some kind. That does not mean that all the people in the unmarried group do not have the same commitment as many of those in the married group. We are, by the hon. Gentleman's own definition, precluding those 17 per cent. of couples from applying to adopt when we allow the 40 per cent. of married couples who go on to break up to apply. That does not seem a rational approach.

Andrew Selous: What does the hon. Gentleman have to say about the British household panel survey data, which show that the average length of cohabitation is only two years? Surely that is very relevant. It is not only about the numbers of couples who break up, but about how long they are together, which is not long enough to commit to a lifetime of care for a child.

Evan Harris: The hon. Gentleman is talking in averages, and that is the problem. We are talking about particular children with particular needs. I shall come in a moment to the dangers of generalisation.
	To return to the point made by the hon. Member for Huntingdon, what if more marriages than unmarried alliances split up as a proportion? I hope that that does not happen. Would he then change his view and disbar married couples from applying to adopt on that basis? It is clearly a reductio ad absurdum, which can happen with arguments put by Conservative Members. That is why it is important not to generalise—otherwise one finds oneself heading towards logical conclusions that I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not want to draw.
	The dangers of generalisation are clear. Let us suppose—although I am not suggesting for one moment that this is the case—that a sociologist came along with the supposition that parents from a particular ethnic minority group were more likely, marginally or significantly, to separate than those from the majority ethnic group in this country. On that basis, would it be reasonable to say that because, on average, they do not do as well in terms of stability, no one from that group should be allowed to apply? I think that we would abhor such a discriminatory arrangement based on a generalisation and I am sure that many, if not all, Conservative Members would be repelled by such a prospect. However, that is exactly the same logic that is being applied to a group of people—unmarried couples—who are not allowed to apply.
	The hon. Member for Huntingdon also made the rather strange point that 95 per cent. of children are currently adopted by married couples and only 5 per cent. by people who are not married—that is, single people. I think that he was saying that there was therefore no need to change the law, a point that was returned to in more depth by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). Surely, however, that is the point. We rely overwhelmingly on a single group of applicants—married couples. If there were a bar on single people applying, the hon. Member for Huntingdon would, according to his logic, have an even stronger argument because he could say that 100 per cent. of children are already adopted by married couples. The situation is peculiar.
	It has been argued that expanding the pool of applicants will not lead to more people seeking to adopt. On that basis, the opponents to the Bill's proposal can relax; if such a change in the law will not bring about a significant increase in the number of adoptions by people who are not married, they can rest assured. If it does, and those people are judged suitable by the assessment, they should rejoice that more children will be found a place. They are in a no-win situation.

Tim Loughton: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would be the first to admit that all this hypothesis is not based on any evidence. However, the natural conclusion of his argument is that the 99.83 per cent. of the 11 million married couples in this country who do not end up adopting are less able or likely to be less able to make adoptive parents, particularly for problem children, than those unmarried couples of whatever description who currently do not come forward. On what evidence does the hon. Gentleman think that unmarried couples could better cope with those problem children than the 99.83 per cent. of the 11 million couples who do not currently come forward and should be encouraged to do so?

Evan Harris: That is not what I said. It is not a competition. I have never suggested that unmarried couples would make better adopters than married couples. I was pointing out that those who passed the assessment process could be equally good.
	The hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw) referred to research that was published today—I shall be more than happy to pass it to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham—which showed that of 430 children, there was not even one inquiry about 129. The hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford did not have time to mention that the only inquiries received for 20 children—harder-to-place children—came from single people; and that eight children received inquiries, which, sadly, were futile, only from unmarried or same-sex couples. That suggests that there is, to use a Conservative term, Xa market" for harder-to-adopt children among couples who are currently banned even from applying. The evidence that I was sent today is clear on that point.

Julian Brazier: The proposals will not extend the possibility for adoption to any household anywhere in the country; they will only make it possible for two people in a household to be adopters rather than one. They will not create one more place.

Evan Harris: I think that they will, because currently people may be deterred from applying as they are not allowed to adopt jointly. The hon. Gentleman might argue that a child needs two parents rather than only one—although I accept that he might not argue that in the case of same-sex couples—so at present heterosexual unmarried couples who shared his view might be deterred from applying to adopt. For example, if the hon. Gentleman were not married, he might find it difficult to apply, although I have no doubt that he would make a most suitable adoptive parent. I hope that I have addressed that point.
	The hon. Member for Huntingdon argued, on the basis of an opinion poll, that a majority of people oppose the proposals. The most recent polling data that I can find are from MORI in September 2002. They show that 44 per cent. of people supported the right of same-sex couples to apply—the hardest case as regards popular opinion—while only 36 per cent. opposed that right. I have never held the view that we should go by popular opinion in matters to do with human rights—[Interruption.] I am grateful for the sympathy expressed by Labour Members for the necessity of that virtue.
	People who pray in aid the fact that there is no public support for the proposals should look more carefully at the evidence from reputable organisations such as MORI rather than from partial organisations—that is the politest description—such as the Christian Institute.
	The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham made some important points and offered a more considered view of the alternative approach than we had heard previously. We should deal with that approach. He argued that the changes would not really expand the pool—a point that was echoed by the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier). I do not doubt the strong commitment of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham to adoption or to the Bill. That has been shown by his contributions to the debates. However, that does not mean that he cannot be wrong about something. Even without the evidence that I have just cited from BAAF, produced today, we must ultimately make a judgment as to whether the measure will improve things.
	On one side of the argument are the National Organisation for Counselling Adoptees and Parents, the Fostering Network, the National Foster Care Association, the British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering, Barnardo's, the NSPCC, NCH Action for Children, the Association of Directors of Social Services, the Local Government Association, the Children's Society, A Voice for the Child in Care, After Adoption, and so on. Ranged against them only a small number of organisations are persuaded by the views of the hon. Gentleman. That may not be conclusive evidence, but it is certainly persuasive of the fact that the hon. Gentleman is wrong in his estimation of the impact of the proposals.
	I want to make two more points about the merits of this matter. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham argued that too many people were put off by the rigors of the assessment process, but, in fact, research done for BAAF in 1999, by Dr. Gilles Ivaldi, who examined applications for approval as adopters that were considered by adoption panels and voluntary adoption agencies, shows that 94 per cent. of those applications were approved as suitable. So there are many reasons why people do not pursue their initial inquiries, but it is not right to say that the assessment process is too harsh. Obviously, a balance has to be struck.
	In an intervention, the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) cited the figure, to which Earl Howe referred, from the Christian Institute, which stated that the average length of a closed gay relationship was only 21 months. That figure has to be rebutted. My information suggests that that figure is an inaccurate portrayal of the findings of a survey carried out in 1992. The survey stated that the lengths of same-sex couples' relationships varied between very short and very long—up to 38 years. The mean average length of a relationship was, in fact, almost four times that suggested by Earl Howe. A follow-up study carried out by the same research team in 1998 found that the average length of gay relationship was almost six years and that, again, many couples were in considerably longer relationships.
	The 2001 United Kingdom lesbian and gay census, carried out by ID Research, found that 28 per cent. of gay male couples and 22 per cent. of lesbian couples were in partnerships that had been ongoing for between five and 20 years. ID Research surveyed 10,500 lesbians and gay men nationwide—a far larger sample than the 1992 study cited by the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire. If we were to use averages of faithful, stable relationships, hon. Members would find it difficult to qualify for assessment, and I include the relationships of those in his own party. We must at all times avoid the temptation to generalise, because that way lie despair and destruction.
	I should like to deal with the reason that we are discussing this issue yet again. I have made this point before, but it is worth rehearsing: it is unfortunate that we have to debate this issue again. The House of Lords rejected proposals similar to the amendments in lieu of the Lords amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Wakefield and supported by the Liberal Democrat party and hon. Member on both sides of the House. Those proposals were rejected not simply because of the Conservative party in the House of Lords. The Conservatives as a parliamentary force are not conclusive in that House and some would say that, although their discussions on this issue are diverting, they are not in the end relevant. To a certain extent, the problem was the hang-ups that the Labour party and, in particular, the Government have about the measure, because no Whip was placed on Labour peers.

Kevin Brennan: Rightly so.

Evan Harris: I question whether that was right because, if we believe that this is a matter of human rights—particularly those of the child, but also those of potential adopters not to be discriminated against—we should expect parties to state their view so that people can be held to account on the party line. In that respect, the Conservatives have a point about imposing a Whip, but they are inversely wrong by 100 per cent. However, to say that this is somehow a matter of conscience and that the best interests of children should be left to the whim of individuals, without people being able to know what the party line is, appears to let the party off the hook.
	If we in the Liberal Democrat party believe that something is in the best interests of children, we say that it is our party's policy, we put it in our manifesto and we impose a Whip. If Liberal Democrat Members decide that they cannot support that line, they vote against the Whip and, although no dreadful punishment goes their way, they are forced to go against the party's view. Had the Government imposed a Whip, however mild, in the House of Lords, 23 Labour peers would not have voted against an amendment similar to that supported by so many Labour Back Benchers in the House and there would not have been a miserable turnout of only 49 per cent. of the mass of Labour peers in support. There are certainly Liberal Democrat peers who are unsure about the measure. By imposing a Whip, however, we were able to secure a 63 per cent. turnout in support, and no votes against. If the Government agree with the Joint Committee on Human Rights and believe in the merits of the case, will they consider staking their reputation and honour on the matter and do the same with regard to the Labour party?

Kevin Brennan: The hon. Gentleman displays yet again his childish attitude to the subject, which he displayed with regard to his amendment the last time that we discussed the matter. Clearly, whether or not a Whip on the Liberal Democrat side involves tickling Members rather than whipping them, there are issues of conscience in relation to this matter on both sides of the House. If he cannot recognise that, he is clearly a member of the Stalinist wing of his party.

Evan Harris: There are issues of conscience on every matter considered by the House. If the hon. Gentleman is arguing that every time the Government put a Whip on there is no issue of conscience, many of the less slavishly loyal Labour Members will have words to say to him. It is not a question of whether there are issues of conscience and of people having sincerely held views; it is whether the Government are slipping and sliding away from taking responsibility for supporting the measure. The Minister did a fantastic job of defending herself against Jeremy Paxman on XNewsnight"—eight times—on the issue, but people were still left asking why, if the Government want this change, they will not ask their supporters to vote along party lines in this House and in the other place.

Tim Loughton: The hon. Gentleman is being as disingenuous as usual. He has claimed several times that the Liberal Democrats are wonderful because they have allowed a free vote, although it is Liberal Democrat policy to open up adoption. More than a third of Liberal Democrat peers did not support the measure, however, and many of them were present for the vote and actively abstained. The Liberal Democrat leader in the House of Lords, Baroness Williams, has said:
	XProviding there are sufficient married couples to adopt eligible children, I believe they should be preferred over the unmarried."
	She, along with more than a third of Liberal Democrat peers, did not vote in line with what the hon. Gentleman claims is his party's policy.

Evan Harris: The hon. Gentleman makes the point that I have just made—there will be people who have differences of opinion. Had the Labour party put a Whip on, and 63 per cent. or nearly two thirds—the figures that he gave are right—turned out in favour of the amendment, we would not be having this debate now, he would not have had to cobble together the defence of his position that we heard earlier, and the measure would be put on the statute book more quickly. The measure needs to get on the statute book—in the form, I hope, amended by this group of amendments—for the best interests of children and in the interests of non-discrimination. I hope that the Government will refute the suggestion in The Independent today that senior Whitehall sources argue that if the other place does not back down, the Government will drop the measure. Those kinds of hints, which allegedly come from the Government, send the wrong signals to opponents of the measure in another place. I hope that the Minister will be very clear in her reply that the Government are committed to ensuring that the will of this House can override that of the other place, in this Session, before we prorogue.

David Borrow: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that he is prepared, between now and Prorogation, to see the whole of the Bill lost because the other place may not accept the amendment? We can play ping-pong for several days, but if the Lords do not accept the proposal, the whole Bill may be lost.

Evan Harris: Interventions such as that make me worry more than rumours in the newspapers about the Government's intent. I hope that the Bill will be passed as amended, and the Government should make it absolutely clear that, if it is rejected in another place, they will send it back again—even that would be something. This debate is about the rights of the child, and opportunities such as this Bill come along only once every 25 years, so the Government ought to be clear about their willingness, at the appropriate time, to use other parliamentary procedures to ensure that the Bill becomes law, in its correct form and as soon as possible.
	I return to the main proposition: the Bill needs amendments (a) to (uu). I hope that there is a maximum turnout from each party for the votes, and I pay particular tribute to Conservative Members who are prepared to defy the Whip to make it clear that the rights of the child and the right not to be discriminated against come first.

Meg Munn: It is a shocking fact that a boy over the age of five is unlikely to be adopted even though he is waiting for an adoptive home. Let us think about that for a moment. Let us think about children whom we know, perhaps a son aged seven or eight, a nephew, a next-door neighbour or a child who lives in our street. I repeat: a boy over the age of five is unlikely to find someone to offer him a permanent home.
	We have heard it said many times, rightly, that this debate is not about anybody's right to adopt. Nobody has the right to adopt, and that is as it should be. I believe strongly, however, that every adult who is able to offer a loving home to a child should be allowed to do so, regardless of their situation. If they have been assessed as suitable to adopt, they should have the right to apply. If they are deemed to be suitable for a particular child, that child could have a loving home that they might not otherwise find.
	As a society that values children, we should ensure that every child has the right to a loving, permanent home. We do not achieve that at the moment. Adoption is fundamentally about children; it is not about the way in which we, as adults, live our lives. It is not about our homes, our party positions or the way in which our party wants us to vote. Those are not the issues today.
	I am holding in my hand XBe My Parent" magazine, which has already been referred to. It is a monthly magazine produced by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering. I could have looked at it every month when I worked in social services, but I have to tell the House that I did not. I will not get into the bidding war that we had in Committee about who has been in social services the longest—

Hilton Dawson: Because you won.

Meg Munn: Yes, I won. One would think that people who had spent so many years in social services dealing with these issues would have become immune to them. However, I could not look, every month, at the faces of the children in this magazine because every child smiling out from a photo is included not because someone wants to adopt them but because there is already a shortage of adopters in their local authority. Most children in most local authorities are matched with parents who have gone through the process in that area or who have made an arrangement with another local authority. Children appear in this magazine only when they are hard to place.
	Hon. Members should look at the thickness of the magazine and think about how many children are included. Let us consider a few of them. The magazine says:
	XRicky is a lively, active boy who loves reading, swimming, watching TV and playing computer games."
	Ricky is nine. I make it clear for the record that Ricky is not the child's real name. Joel and Joseph are brothers aged two and four. Thomas, six, appears with his sister, Crystal, aged five. Sapphire, aged nine, is shown with her sister Lauren, seven. Now we move on to the children who are very hard to place, not necessarily because they are difficult but because they are siblings and need to be placed together. Adam, aged 11, is featured with Tamara, nine, and Damien, seven. Finally, a lovely group of boys, aged four to 12, smile out at us—Leonard, Thomas, Jamie and William. For 30 seconds I look at them and think, XWouldn't it be great to take those four boys home?" If my husband is listening, he will be panicking by now.
	The children look nice and are smiling out from their photos, but they have all had a difficult start in life. They have experienced rejection and they have behavioural difficulties. They will test the patience of the most loving, caring and resilient person, not because they are bad children or because they want to behave like that, but because of their experiences.

Julian Brazier: The hon. Lady speaks with feeling, as always, and I strongly agree with the point that she just made. Surely, however, because of the ghastly experiences that most of those children have had in their birth families, it follows that the hard and fast requirement in many of the advertisements for a great deal of contact with the birth family is bound to put off potential adopters.

Meg Munn: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. One lesson we have learned over the years is that if children have an awareness of their identity and an understanding of who they are, it helps the stability of the adoptive placement. For every child, but particularly for older children, a thorough assessment is needed of what, if any, contact is in the interests of the child. For some children, the right decision is that there should be no contact, ever. That may be the case for children who have been subjected to multiple familial abuse.
	For many other children, whose parents have simply been unable to provide the necessary care and support, letterbox contact may be appropriate. It may be important for older children to know that they will see grandma, for example, every six weeks, every six months or once a year. That may help them to settle. It may help a child to know that although he is not seeing his mum and dad or his older brother, they are still all right. We cannot make blanket decisions about contact because it is important not only to consider the needs of the child but—and this is where the hon. Gentleman had a valid point—to consider realistically what prospective adoptive parents can cope with. Those are the two sides of the argument.
	Unfortunately, we often end up talking about poor practice and about local authorities that are not doing a good job. When we do that, we do an incredible disservice to children, to hard-working social workers and to the local authorities that are doing a good job. It is always the bad cases that hit the press, but there is a lot of good work, and we need to ensure that all local authorities have good practice and achieve high standards.

Julian Brazier: I certainly agree with the hon. Lady that we need to emphasise the spectrum of quality and try to raise the standards of all local authorities as high as the best. She acknowledged that it is crucial to take into account the needs of adoptive parents if we want to get them on board. That is precisely why it seems to me so wrong to predetermine the details about optimum contact without taking into account the wishes of prospective adopters. We should let adopters get further down the line before those details are set.

Meg Munn: I shall come on to the detail of the process shortly. Contact details are included in the magazine to give an indication of what is required. Some prospective adopters would say that they could not cope with having contact with the parents, so there would be no point in them even inquiring about certain children. Others would say that they were not sure about contact, so the issue would have to be negotiated.
	It is clearly nonsense to suggest that many unmarried parents do not bring up their children in a stable relationship: they clearly do. So why do we want to rule out the possibility of unmarried couples applying to be adopters for some of the children who are waiting for a home? This is not about statistics. It is not about the number of relationships that break down or the number of people who live in gay relationships and how long they have been together. It is about matching children to homes. For that reason, I want to cover the process of applying in detail.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) exploded some of the myths employed in the debate in the House of Lords. Similarly, I want to explode some of the myths mentioned today, especially those raised by the hon. Members for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) and for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). Local authorities are trying to get more people to adopt. I wish that it was as easy as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham suggested. He said that we have a specific number of married couples, and that even if only a proportion of them come forward as adopters there will be homes for all the children. If it were that easy, we probably would not be having this debate, but the fact is that more children are waiting for adoptive homes than there are prospective adopters.
	The local authority advertises for more adopters, perhaps for children aged four to seven, and it invites people who phone up to inquire to an open evening. At that stage, some people will decide that it is not for them. Others, however, might think that adoption is for them as a couple, but that they are not ready for it. They might have discovered that they cannot have children of their own and want to go down the route of IVF before returning in two, three or four years' time. Others might think, XWhoops. This is a big life-changing experience. Let's go away and think about it." That explains the drop-out figure. It is a serious and major decision. That might be seen as an obstacle, but I think that it is right that people properly consider whether they should proceed with an adoption.
	The next process is training, where people hear more about the children. Most people do not know the background of the children who appear in XBe My Parent" or even those who are up for more straightforward adoption. They learn about the importance of identity and the adoption process. Some people at that point will decide that adoption is not for them. It might not be what they thought it would be or they might decide that they want to have a baby. That is not an obstacle; it is the natural process of people making a decision about a serious matter in their life.
	People then have individual assessments with their social worker. We heard much about how social workers put people off, but most of them spend time talking to people about why they want to adopt. They consider their experiences and what they have to offer. At that stage, some people will be counselled out, as we referred to it professionally, perhaps because they have not come to terms with the fact that they cannot have their own child. That could be seen as another obstacle, but I think it is right that people properly consider whether adoption is right for them.
	At the end of the process, the social worker tells the adoption panel whether a couple or single person should be approved to adopt. That follows a long discussion on what sort of child is right for them. For some people, it is an issue of gender; perhaps they have boys in their family and want to adopt a girl. For others, it is an issue of age; if they already have children, they will want the right age gap. Those details are considered. We do not have blanket approval of adoptive parents. The idea that we will end up with lots of couples vying for the same child is nonsense. People come into the process with different abilities and skills, which they offer to adopted children.
	Providing everything goes smoothly, 94 per cent. of people who are presented to adoption panels are approved, which has already been mentioned. In my five years of chairing an adoption panel and being a decision maker, I think we turned down one person. Local authorities are not in the business of putting up artificial barriers to stop people adopting. There are children who need to be adopted. The social workers know them and are heartbroken because they cannot find them homes. Local authorities are not in the business of turning people away for spurious reasons.

Tim Loughton: I am listening closely. Of course the decision should be down to people on the ground, but only if they are not constrained by preconceptions. How does the hon. Lady explain the enormous disparity between the number of successful applications in different social services areas, ranging from 2 to 10 per cent? I do not know the figure for Sheffield now or in her time there, but surely those areas where the application rate is much less successful can learn from the more successful areas. That is one thing that we want.

Meg Munn: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I said that there is good practice, better practice and poor practice. I am not defending poor practice. Those areas that are demonstrating poor practice need to be examined and to improve. I have no quibble with that.
	What happens next to prospective adopters? Social workers have children who need placements. They tell the adoption team about them and a matching process takes place. If a social worker is lucky, she might have two or three couples or sets of people from which to choose. It is more likely that there will be one choice or the team might say that it has someone in the pipeline. It is nonsense to suggest that a social worker says, XI'm politically correct and I want a gay couple for this child." That does not happen. Social workers are desperate for families and want a couple who meet a child's needs.
	In my experience social workers are more conservative—perhaps that is not in their defence—than most hon. Members. For good reasons, most of them want two parents: a mother and a father. They prefer the mum to stay at home because the children—there might be two or three of them—have such demanding needs. They will not specify the mum, but at least one parent needs to have time to spend with the children. Social workers consider each case from the point of view of the child. It would be wrong to place a young girl who has been badly sexually abused and who has a range of needs in a household where there is a man. She could not deal with that. I am not saying that all men are a risk to that child, but it might be right for that child to have two women—two mothers—to provide care and support. It is important to match the needs of the child with a family.
	On specifying the ethnicity of a child, I strongly believe that most children grow up best in circumstances that reflect their identity. They do that because those parents will naturally understand that child's background, but it must not be a given. A child should not languish in care because there is no exact match. As chair of the adoption panel, I faced a proposal to match a child from a Muslim background with a family in which one parent was a Hindu. My first reaction was, XMy goodness, that is a difficult match," but when we investigated the case, looking into the child's background and the ability of the couple with whom we were placing the child to respect the child's religious background, we realised that it was absolutely the right thing to do—right for the child, because it was the best match we could get. The child was mixed race, as was the family to whom it was going.

Julian Brazier: The hon. Lady is talking about good practice, but she will remember from the Standing Committee the case of Natalie, who was in care as a baby and therefore in by far the easiest category to place. She was refused to a single mother—a woman who had the means to support her and who, like Natalie, was of middle eastern-European origin—on the ground that the lady was Christian, whereas the baby's origins were Islamic. The good practice that she describes is simply not happening across the spectrum.

Meg Munn: The hon. Gentleman rightly highlights an example of poor practice. I am not here to defend poor practice. The Bill is about continuing to promote good practice. Since their election in 1997, the Labour Government have set out to improve adoption practice and have put in substantial additional resources. That is right, but we should set our standards high and do our best for the children, and the best thing that we can do for those children is to widen the pool. Yes, we should get more married couples to come forward to adopt—we should all talk adoption up.

Julie Morgan: My hon. Friend is aware that many children cannot be placed by local authorities and are referred to voluntary bodies. Before becoming a Member of Parliament, I worked for Barnardo's trying to place some of the most damaged children in the area in which I worked. I support my hon. Friend's point that there is a severe shortage of prospective adoptive parents to take damaged children, whether the children are physically disabled—we placed children from hospitals who physically could do hardly anything—or behaviourally disturbed, which presents a major problem—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady has made her point.

Meg Munn: My hon. Friend makes an important point, which goes to the heart of our debate. There are many children out there who need homes. If there were more adopters than children waiting for adoption, there might be some merit in the arguments that we have heard, but there are 5,000 children waiting for adoptive homes—not 5,000 families who want to adopt. How can we, in all conscience, deny any of those children a home?
	The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) referred to eight children in respect of whom only single parents had inquired. Look into the faces of those eight children and tell them that the person making the inquiry cannot be considered for providing them with a permanent home because he or she is not married. I am not prepared to do that, and I hope that Conservative Members are not prepared to do so either.

John Bercow: I rise to support the motion to disagree and a number of the grouped amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), which stand in the name of several hon. Members.
	At the outset, I pay tribute both to the hon. Gentleman's work and to his words on previous occasions and today. I am aware, after taking a cursory glance at his biographical details, that he married in 1982. He has considerable experience and was able to knock sideways those who cavilled at his motivation—especially people involved in parts of the media, who might suggest that he had some sort of politically correct agenda. Manifestly, he has nothing of the sort in mind. He is a champion of marriage and he is practising his commitment to it.
	I, too, believe in marriage. I am—I hope, God willing—soon to demonstrate my commitment to marriage, when in 33 days' time, here in the House of Commons, I get married. I look forward to the joys of marriage, and I ought to have the humility to put on record my extreme gratitude that I have been lucky enough to find a gracious future wife who has, rather generously, agreed to slow down the process of my inevitable deterioration. That said, and fan of marriage though I am, I do not think that that institution is or should be the centrepiece or defining feature of the debate about adoption. It certainly should not be.
	Several hon. Members have referred to the key statistics that lie at the heart of today's debate. Let the point be underlined: approximately 5,000 children are adopted each year; a similar number again have been decreed suitable to be adopted, but still await willing adoptive families, and those kids are languishing principally in institutional care.
	I found extremely powerful the research conducted by British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering. In particular I focused on the research relating to March this year—it has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw)—concerning the group of 430 children who were potentially available for and suited to adoption. It was striking that although overall there were more than 1,200—1,255, I think—inquiries about those children, no fewer than 129 of the 430 were children in respect of whom no inquiries were made. That is a serious situation which no democratically elected politician has the right to dismiss or ignore. That is an extremely challenging state of affairs for legislators.
	Alongside those bald statistics, we have to consider the obvious and, I suspect, increasing phenomenon of people coming forward who are not married, but who are cohabiting, and who have, not merely an interest in, but a passion to realise their ambition to have a child. Often, they are people who tried to have children but were unsuccessful, and they want to adopt a child.
	It is in that context that the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Wakefield have to be considered. As has been said many times, the objective of those who have tabled the amendments is to widen or extend the pool of potential adopters, and I believe that we should judge the arguments on their merits and not seek to impugn the good motives or personal integrity of those who have put their names to the amendments. Let us examine first the argument about extending the pool—a point to which I am sympathetic and which I have discussed with several people over a period of months.
	A week or two ago, in the context of making what I thought was an important argument in relation to the Bill, a senior Conservative, who is himself strongly opposed to adoption by unmarried couples, said to me, XThis issue is not about gay rights." It so happens that, in the course of the remarks that excited that response, I had made absolutely no reference to gay rights, but there you go. On the point of fact, I agreed with that individual: this issue is not about the rights of gay people, or of heterosexual people, or of married people, or of unmarried people—frankly, it is not about the rights of adults at all. It is about the rights, welfare and futures of some of the most vulnerable children in our society today.
	In contemplating this issue and preparing for the debate, I have had a number of conversations with the county adoption adviser in Buckinghamshire, Elaine Dibben. I am happy to say that I learned a lot from those conversations; they were extremely instructive for me. Elaine Dibben told me of a number of harrowing cases and personal tragedies of people in the county of Buckinghamshire who have been judged suitable for adoption but who are the great unwanted, discarded, forgotten children in our society.
	I think, for example, of the seven-year-old boy in Buckinghamshire who has been waiting for adoption since July 2000. He is vulnerable and he needs help now. I think of the 10-year-old boy who has been waiting for adoption since January 2000. He is vulnerable and he needs help now. I think, for example, of the brother and sister respectively aged four and six years who come from mixed parentage and who waited for adoption from January 2000 until July 2001, at which point they were taken on by an adoptive family. Sadly, despite best efforts and no doubt good intentions on both sides, that arrangement did not work. Within two months, by September 2001, that brother and sister were back in institutional care, where I am sorry to say they have languished for the succeeding 14 months.
	I think, for example, of the sisters aged eight and nine who have been waiting for adoption for the past 12 months. Those sisters are judged and described as hard to place on the ground—surprise, surprise, in common with a great many other siblings—that they want to stay together. They have not yet been placed. Those sisters are vulnerable and they need help now.
	I think of the 18-month-old boy who has been waiting for adoption for 12 months, since he was six months old. His situation is the more serious because in addition to the institutionalised care that he has been obliged to endure, he faces threats to himself and the possible retardation of his development for the simple and sad reason that his mother was a drug addict. These are the vulnerable children in our society who are not interested in a theory or an idealisation, but in practical help, demonstrable compassion, effective assistance now.
	It is generally true and acknowledged—to try to cut through some of the statistical table tennis in this debate—that there are two valid propositions. First, on the whole, there is frequently a surplus of would-be adoptive parents, but that surplus is of would-be adoptive parents who want to adopt young, healthy, female—for that read generally less difficult—and white children.
	The second correct proposition is that there is in many cases a shortage of would-be adoptive parents who are willing, as many hon. Members have said, to take on and give a loving home to children in a different category. Those children might—this is often true—be older; they may very well be boys. In particular, those hard-to-place children are very likely to be those with behavioural problems, who suffer from learning difficulties, or who are afflicted by mental or physical disabilities. We have a duty to address their plight and to see what we can do about their situation.

Julian Brazier: My hon. Friend is making a passionate and eloquent speech. Those of us who have campaigned for this Bill for many years want the matters that he is raising and the tragic cases—some of which he has listed—addressed, but does he not realise that the proposal would not open one extra home? All that it would stipulate is that, if a child is to be taken into a home and adopted jointly rather than adopted by one adult in the home, that couple would need to get married.

John Bercow: I respect my hon. Friend's sincerity, but I utterly reject the point that he has made, and I am happy to tell him and the House why I do so. If the existing arrangements are manifestly discriminatory, send out a signal of hostility and purposely create categories of adopters—one category of which is made up of first-class citizens and the other of second-class citizens—it is scarcely surprising when some who might otherwise be interested in coming forward and adopting jointly on a basis of equality of esteem choose to give up the unequal struggle against such ludicrous arrangements which continue to obtain. I say in all sincerity to my hon. Friend that I know that he believes in his position with conviction, but the idea that one can simply lecture people and say, XYou get married and then you'll be all right, acceptable and we'll approve of you" is simply not acceptable in the century in which I think I now live.
	I must emphasise that we are talking about abused, neglected and bereft children who need to be brought up physically, emotionally and spiritually in a family, headed preferably by two parents who are jointly and legally responsible for them. That does not seem to be an unreasonable request. Very often, there is not a great choice. I find it extraordinary that people talk as though the question is simply one of finding the ideal married couple. We should not view this debate in terms of two options that are juxtaposed and rivals to each other. The option of the Xideal" married couple on the one hand and of the Xflawed" and, by definition therefore, inferior unmarried and cohabiting couple on the other seems to be a wrong way to look at the matter.
	The truth is that in a number of cases, as is demonstrably proven by the evidence of those who continue to languish either in institutional care or in serial and unstable fostering arrangements, the choice is different. The choice in many cases, and the choice in future as cohabitation grows, will be between the offer of a decent, loving, stable and committed home headed by two people who are not married, and the alternative which, despite the best efforts of those who provide the care, is not infrequently the living hell of institutional care or serial fostering arrangements.
	Let us consider some of the arguments about whether unmarried couples should adopt. The thesis has been advanced many a time and oft, including in several speeches this afternoon, that cohabiting partners have inherently more unstable relationships. I must say to those who argue that case that we ought to remember our own political and to some extent intellectual mentor in the Conservative party, Disraeli, who, it was said, talked of
	Xlies, damned lies and statistics".
	It may well be valid as a general proposition, as the statistical evidence adduced would appear to suggest, that married couples' relationships are longer lasting and more stable than those of unmarried couples. However, it seems a non sequitur to generalise from those statistics when we are dealing, and when we know that we are dealing, in the context of a debate about adoption, with a specific and self-selecting group of cohabiting people who have a thirst for adoption and are coming forward in the hope that that thirst will be satisfied. That is a different category. In many cases the individuals concerned are older, and they have frequently, as I mentioned earlier, tried to have children and not been successful, which is why they have come forward and taken an interest in the adoption process. Simply to smear them as unsuitable or lesser beings is unwarranted and, in terms of attracting people to adopt, extremely counterproductive.
	Right hon. and hon. Members are duty bound to take account of the nature of the process by which those who initially select themselves as potential adoptive parents come ultimately to be selected or not to be selected, as the case may be, by others. It is important, as other hon. Members have done, to focus on the specifics, the facts and the detail of the process. The way some people speak about it, anyone would think that the adoption process was the parenting equivalent of service in a fast-food restaurant. It simply is not like that.
	As evidence in our various constituencies around the country conclusively shows, the process is thorough, rigorous and exacting. It is right and proper that that should be so. When people come forward, they have to go through the entire process. If, for example, they are part of a thoroughly unstable relationship, they are extraordinarily unlikely to get through the process. I want to attend to the detail, because I am concerned about the way in which generalised arguments and—dare I say it?—occasionally deliberate or inadvertent prejudices are tossed around in the course of these debates.
	What can we say about the process? There might be an initial inquiry by telephone or letter. Information would then be sent out, with details of an information session. The person or couple would have to attend the information session, there would be an interview with a social worker, and a series of statutory checks would be made. There would be attendance at a preparation group, and following that, interviews with two social workers. An assessment would be started with a social worker, on the principle of home visits, of which typically there would be six or eight, conducted over a period of three months or so. Follow-up workshops would be held.
	There would be referees to be visited by the social worker, there would be the crucial form F report to be completed, and there would be a second opinion visit by a second social worker. The applicants would have the opportunity to read and comment on form F. The social worker would present the report to the adoption panel, the adoption panel would make a recommendation to the adoption agency, and the adoption agency would make a decision. If, after that recitation, right hon. and hon. Members and others attending to our proceedings elsewhere are not already exhausted, I have to tell them that that is not the end of the process.
	An agency decision might be made that a child would be put into a willing adoptive family, but as we all recognise, that is a trial arrangement. In due course, an assessment of the success or otherwise of that trial would be made. The assessment would be made by a judge in a family or county court. That is an extremely important safeguard. Throughout the rigorous, thorough and exacting process that I have described, certain criteria are to the fore—the stability of the couple's relationship, the extent of the networks of support available, the details of the family histories involved, and the capacity or, as it may transpire, the incapacity of the would-be adoptive parents to create space, in the widest sense of that term, for the entry of a new child into the family. It is an extremely rigorous, highly valuable and very serious process. To cavil at it or to appear to dismiss its significance or quality is cruelly unfair to those who labour long and hard in pursuit of the interests of children.
	That leads me to what happens now. I pay tribute to the many right hon. and hon. Members who know a lot more about the subject than I do. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), with whom I have had some productive conversations on the subject, and a number of whose contributions to debate I have read. My hon. Friend, in the best Conservative tradition, is focused on the practicalities—the here and now, the reality of what happens in the society in which we live.
	As we know, couples who are cohabiting already adopt. That is true not only of heterosexual couples, but of gay couples. However, they do not adopt jointly, so they face the peculiarly unenviable dilemma of deciding which of them is to have the status of the adoptive parent, and which of them is to accept the lesser role of second-class citizen whose fate and limitation it is, perhaps, to acquire a residence order which will lapse when the child involved reaches the age of 16 or 18.
	I hope that it will command general assent to say that, quite apart from the fact that such a discriminatory arrangement within the family creates injustice, inequality, instability and possibly unhappiness in the mind of the child, who will naturally view both partners as his or her parents, there are also damaging practical consequences that flow from that peculiarly anomalous legal arrangement. For example, if the adoptive parent dies, the adoptive parent's partner—that is to say, from the vantage point of the child, his or her other parent—will not have an automatic right to become the adoptive parent. He or she will have to go through the whole process, with all the attendant uncertainty and stress, and the possibility of a sad culmination of events. If, for example, the adoptive parent's partner dies, there can be many instances in which the child does not have a right to inherit the estate of his or her other parent. If the couple split up, the partner who is not the adoptive parent currently has no responsibility in law to contribute to the cost of maintaining the child.
	Those are significant downsides and injustices, about which we should not be complacent. If, on the other hand, we go for reform, tidy up the law and practise the principle of equity, the situation could be a great deal better. Under child support legislation and under the relevant schedule of the Children Act 1975, the interests of the child will be safeguarded and promoted, in terms of the opportunity to make maintenance orders, and in terms of the transfer and settlement of property. Those are important considerations.
	I shall focus now on the consensus in support of reform, which is a powerful consideration. The hon. Members for Chatham and Aylesford and for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) have, in the course of the debates, made much of the organisations that support reform, and they have been right to do so. I simply pose the question, and I admit that I pose it in particular to some of my right hon. and hon. Friends, whether it is entirely wise to ignore or disregard the fact that 29 of the 30 organisations that gave evidence and made representations to the Special Standing Committee on the Bill argued in favour of these particular amendments or, at any rate, the principle that underlies them. I think that that is an extremely relevant consideration. I do not say that it is conclusive of itself, but it is a material consideration. Simply to dismiss as the politically correct social worker brigade the organisations whose daily responsibility and privilege it is to cater for the interests of children betrays a degree of arrogance and ignorance that is unworthy of a serious debate on these important subjects. The people in those organisations know what they are talking about.

Andrew Selous: I am listening with great interest to my hon. Friend, who is clearly speaking with great passion and conviction in dealing with a matter about which he feels very strongly. On the number of organisations that support a particular argument, he will recall when 264 economists, I think, wrote to The Times to say that the policies of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Geoffrey Howe, were incorrect. Lord Howe ignored that advice and was later proved to have been right in doing so.

John Bercow: I must admit that I do not think that a powerful argument. However, I shall do my best to improve it. With characteristic self-effacement, my hon. Friend understated what I confess I believe to be a poor case. He referred to 264 economists, but in fact, of course, 364 economists excoriated my right hon. and noble Friend Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven and her colleagues for pursuing those economic policies. I say to him that economics is a notoriously inexact science. If one meets any three economists, one will unfailingly hear at least five opinions, so it does not seem to me that we should be too influenced by that consideration.
	What we are talking about are people in professional practice dealing not with theories and isolated models such as those in the discipline of economics, but with the practice of social work, care for children, human understanding, interpersonal relations and societal development. Those are very important differences.

Jonathan R Shaw: May I assist the hon. Gentleman in strengthening his argument in respect of the 29 agencies that gave evidence to the Special Standing Committee? Members of the Committee had the opportunity to cross-examine those agencies and put questions to them. Their submissions were not merely letters in a newspaper; we had the opportunity to put questions and test their arguments.

John Bercow: I agree. I should add that it seems a poor line of argument merely to say that, as the amendments were not proposed at the outset and arose only at a later stage, they cannot be of much significance. What is the point of having a number of different stages in the passage of a Bill, including pre-legislative scrutiny, as now favoured by the Government, and the opportunity for specialist representations to be made, if one simply dismisses them out of hand when they happen to conflict with one's preconceptions? I was influenced by what happened and I took the trouble to read the evidence.
	I should like to conclude with reference to the parliamentary management of this issue. There has been a good deal of discussion in the past few days, as people may have noticed, about the way in which the subject has been handled, especially on the Opposition Benches. The judgment was made to impose a three-line Whip—that is to say, to instruct Conservative Members of Parliament to vote against the amendments. I must emphasise that this is the second occasion on which that has been done. It was done last May and it has been done again.
	I do not mind saying to the House that in May this year, after much soul searching, and with a heavy heart and, frankly, a guilty conscience, I did what is not customary for me and stayed away. I did not take part. If I remember rightly, I sat instead in my office. I had on this occasion to ask myself how I should react to the situation that has been presented to me and which other hon. Members will have to address. Of course, there is never any shortage of well intentioned and often friendly people who will say, XDon't go to the wall over it; it's not worth having a big fight. After all, it is only one issue, and"—wait for it—Xit's the Government's problem to get their Bill; and if they lose it, that's their tough luck." That would be the easy way out. I think that it would be a cop-out, a get-out and a sell-out for somebody who feels as strongly as I do on this matter to take that course of action. I concluded that I was not prepared to convict myself of that abdication of responsibility.
	I think that the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Wakefield and supported by others are sound. They offer hope and could make the situation better. I believe that what we need in this debate is less prejudice and more fairness. We should aspire to govern Britain as she is, not Britain as she was. We should govern on the basis of enduring principles adapted for proper application to the circumstances of the time. What we need are open minds, generosity of spirit and a readiness to understand the point of view of others. For goodness' sake, let us try to think outside the box—the way in which we, our party members or others who think or live like us, would naturally react. I am concerned about those damaged, bereft, neglected and vulnerable children, and I am not prepared to pass up any practical opportunity that might enable us to make their lives better.
	It has been a privilege to serve in the shadow Cabinet over the past 14 months under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith). I am grateful to him for the opportunities that he has given to me. I hope that I have made some very modest contribution, and I look forward to supporting him and my party in the Lobbies and on these Benches in the weeks, months and years ahead.
	I conclude simply by thanking my hon. and right hon. Friends for the courtesy and understanding that they have shown me on the occasion of the decision that I have felt compelled to make.

Liz Blackman: I commend the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) for his fine speech. At any event, my speech was going to be very short and to the point, but I have since revised it to being extremely brief. By this stage of the debate, the main points will have been aired, but I want to emphasise a couple of points that are worth either the repeating or the sharing.
	Although it sounds extremely crude to say so, I believe that the issue is about supply and demand. It is about demand for good-quality parents to come forward. Currently, the supply of such parents does not match the demand of children: notably those who are languishing in local children's homes, as the hon. Member for Buckingham said. That must be at the forefront of our minds. It has been suggested that 5,000 children are in care. That number could even be slightly higher, but every one of those children is a child without a safe, secure and loving context. The longer those children stay in children's homes, the longer they will have to learn as a norm the worst ways of children who are older than them, who got into the system before them, and who are even more abused and rejected than the younger ones who are coming through.
	That is the issue; it is about encouraging good-quality parents to come forward and offer those children hope. That is what the children try to cling to. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn) spoke movingly about children who never saw anybody come forward and make an offer to adopt them or even express interest in them so as to raise a little hope or start the process.
	There are two main reasons why supply and demand do not match one another. One of them is the profile of the children, about which I and many other hon. Members have talked. They are not cuddly babies any more, but challenging children, many of whom have special needs. The other factor that has not helped is the legislation under which we are currently working, which is 25 years old. Any legislation that is 25 years old has difficulties keeping up with the pace of change. Adoption legislation is no exception. The Bill is an excellent piece of legislation, but the issue about unmarried parents and same-sex couples is not a bolt-on concept. It is not something that can be ignored while the rest of the Bill sails through, everything being all right and supply meeting demand.
	It is crucial to attract more good-quality parents and to widen the pool. Failing that, we are talking a good talk but we are not solving the problem. If we do not adopt that approach, we shall find in two years' time after this wonderful debate that there are the same statistics. That is not what we should be about.
	If we do not accept the amendments, we shall be saying to the child, XYou are not entitled or allowed to have a legal relationship with both the adults in your life who provide you with a loving, caring home. You are allowed only one." I think back quite a long way. If I had been in that situation as a teenager—perhaps a damaged teenager or a stroppy teenager—I would have exploited it to the maximum. At the same time, I would have felt insecure. The message that is given to adults who are coming forward to offer their parenting skills—this applies especially to the one who is not adopting the child—is that they are not quite up to the mark. They feel that they are being told, XYou are not quite up to the mark. We do not value you in the same way as we value your partner."
	Adults go through a rigorous selection process. We marvel and are delighted when such parents produce wonderful, secure and loving homes for children through adoption. However, the basic message is, XCarry on as you were doing and as you are doing, but we ain't going to recognise you." That is not only a matter of equality. Indeed, it is a practical matter. It is one that sends a wrong signal and will not result in more parents coming forward. It is the reason why few parents have come forward who are in an unmarried relationship or who are part of a single-sex couple.
	Opposition Members, especially those who are against the amendments, have said that about 90 to 95 per cent. of couples who are adopting are married. That is not surprising. One of the main messages being given out by current legislation—I hope that future legislation will not do so—is, XYou are not quite valued in the same way as your married neighbours." The situation is wrong from a practical point of view as well as in terms of equity.
	I was extremely concerned by the veiled threat of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench—in fact, there was not much veiled about it—when he suggested that there is a severe danger that the proposed legislation, as a package, will not pass through Parliament if things go wrong for him tonight. I hope that I have misinterpreted his remarks. The hon. Gentleman seemed to be saying, XIf we do not get a resolution that goes our way, the Bill will be in danger of collapsing." Obviously we are faced with prorogation. I hope that what the hon. Gentleman suggests is not the case.
	The Bill is a fine piece of proposed legislation. With others on both sides of the Chamber, I have been heavily involved with it. However, it will be a fine piece of legislation only if it is implemented in full and if we can get additional prospective caring and loving parents into the system that offers many damaged children a real opportunity and a real chance.

Julian Brazier: It is a privilege to have the opportunity again to speak on adoption. I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Erewash (Liz Blackman), who has been closely concerned with the Bill throughout its consideration.
	I shall start with two general points. First, I support all those on both sides of the Chamber who have said that it is an excellent Bill. I have been campaigning for six years for the adoption of children who are in care. I have looked with horror at the extraordinary spectrum. When the campaign started, fewer than 1 per cent. of children in care in many local authorities were adopted. Some of the best authorities were achieving an adoption rate of more than 12 per cent. Behind these bleak statistics there are many horrifying cases.
	The measures in the Bill have been ably listed by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Mr. Loughton). They range from the introduction of the national register to the provisions to speed up the current desperately slow court procedure. So many lawyers are calling for a faster process. There are also the guidelines for social workers and adoption panels. There is so much positive material in the Bill that will improve the chances of children in care being adopted.
	Secondly, I shall draw the interest of the House to a case that may be of use in developing regulations. An especially horrifying case was put before the all-party group on adoption, the details of which I have sent to the Secretary of State, which concerned an adoption that had broken down. By chance, it involved one of the right hon. Gentleman's constituents, and I received a most courteous reply about it. The father who adopted the child was a social worker and was familiar with working with children. The case illustrates the extreme importance of psychiatric assessments in cases where allegations are made against parents. In the instance to which I am referring, the allegations were made by a deeply damaged girl after 10 years of successful adoption. She made terrible allegations that were proved to be entirely false. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for agreeing to examine the case. In considering the Bill on a broad spectrum, we never discussed proper psychological assessments after, tragically, adoption has started to break down.
	Members on both sides of the House—not least my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), in his powerful speech—have acknowledged that we are talking not about the rights of adults. Instead, the issue is about the interests of the child. I was privileged to serve on the Special Standing Committee under the extremely able chairmanship of the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), who managed to combine impartiality for most of the time while making his own powerful points when he wanted to do so. I believe that there was only one organisation that argued against the provision that the rights of the child should be paramount. That was the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, which wanted to enter a caveat. Basically, however, almost all organisations accepted that children's rights should be paramount. I think that every Member who has contributed to the debate agrees that that is common ground.
	We are dealing in many instances with desperately damaged children. There is one case from my constituency surgery that involves two little boys, which illustrates the baggage that children bring with them. The two children were unconnected except that they had the same adoptive parents. From memory, they were aged six and seven when they were adopted. One child had been pushed out into the cold so often that he suffered severe frostbite in his feet. He had to be treated for gangrene and came close to amputation. The other child had been kept locked in a cellar for so long that he had no speech skills.
	It is against that background that we must ask how we can best help such children. No one in the Chamber has any doubt that those of us who accept the argument that I am advancing on the Opposition Benches feel every bit as strongly about doing well for these children as those who oppose the argument.
	In principle, the proposed change provides no extra placement anywhere in the country.

Hilton Dawson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Julian Brazier: If I may finish the point, I shall be delighted to give way to the hon. Gentleman. I did that many times in Committee, and he often returned the favour.
	Under current law, anybody, in principle, can apply to adopt, but if two people want legal ties to the child, they must have legal ties to each other. [Interruption.] I think we have a view from the Gallery.

Hilton Dawson: Why not?

Julian Brazier: Absolutely. As a Catholic, I am used to hearing exasperated priests preaching through babies' noises. That is what it is all about.
	Current law does not exclude anyone. It provides simply that two people who want to adopt jointly and to have legal ties to the child should have legal ties to each other. Several speakers, including my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham, pointed out some administrative problems. The principal one is the death of the adopting party. When a child comes into a relationship, it has no idea about the paperwork. It is important that the child feels secure and has progressed in a new home. I cannot believe that, in cases of death, the courts would frequently refuse the surviving partner the right to adopt. We are considering damaged children who require our closest attention, and the problems that afflict them are much broader and more likely to arise than the death of the adopting individual.
	Nobody would argue that every marriage is perfect. From time to time, my good lady reminds me that my marriage is imperfect. I pay tribute to my wife, who has done 18 years' service—six more than it took me to get my Territorial decoration—for putting up with me. Nobody argues that there are no stable relationships outside marriage. However, the burden of the statistics is overwhelmingly on the side of marriage. A survey that the Office for National Statistics conducted in 1997 says it all for me.
	The survey showed that a child born 10 years earlier, in 1987, whose parents were married had an 81 per cent. chance of being with parents who remained married in 1997. A child born into an allegedly stable relationship in 1987, whose parents did not get married almost immediately afterwards, had only a 15 per cent. chance of being with parents who remained in a stable relationship 10 years later.

Jonathan R Shaw: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Julian Brazier: In a moment. We hear time and again about social workers' assessments. However, appalling assessments from so many social workers, albeit not from across the board, but in many local authorities, led me to start a campaign on the subject. The idea that the views of a specific social worker on a relationship are so powerful that such statistics can be brushed aside in the best interests of the child is unconvincing.

John Bercow: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Julian Brazier: I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me, but I promised to give way to the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) first.

Hilton Dawson: It is kind of the hon. Gentleman. We have moved a long way from the point about which I wanted to intervene. As someone who is steeped in the subject and has a tremendous record of concern and commitment on the issue, does he agree that if we deny the opportunity to unmarried couples to adopt jointly, we may turn away people who have something to offer to deeply damaged children? At the very least, we could undermine the basis on which a good, secure relationship could be founded with those children. Surely the hon. Gentleman does not want to do that.

Julian Brazier: I have never argued for discrimination. We have civil law marriages in this country and, as the hon. Member for Wakefield said, the vast majority of cases involve heterosexual couples. We simply ask, if both individuals want to have legal ties to the child, is it so much to expect them to make a binding legal tie to each other? A civil marriage contract is simply that.

John Bercow: If my hon. Friend had a free hand and was starting from scratch, would he prefer to prohibit individual gays adopting? If not, and acknowledging that there are many successful gay adoptions, although they form a minute proportion of the total, why is he opposed to gay couples adopting jointly to the extent of supporting a three-line Whip, which many of us believe sad and ill judged?

Julian Brazier: Let me deal with my hon. Friend's principal point. A moment ago, I gave the statistics for heterosexual couples. I also said that, when they split, there was a problem similar to that in divorce cases, but that there was a much greater likelihood of a split between unmarried couples and that the affected children had already been badly damaged. The argument that I applied to heterosexual couples applies in spades to homosexual couples. Their partnerships last a much shorter time than those of heterosexual couples. Before my hon. Friend says that he can point to individual cases of long-lasting relationships, I accept that there are a few. However, we are dealing with a relatively small pool about which not many statistics are available.
	In heterosexual relationships, couples tend to marry or break up in a year or two after the child arrives. When the pool is large enough to consider, I suspect that that will apply to homosexuals. I understand my hon. Friend's point but I do not agree with it. My point is about splitting up rather than homosexual adoption.

David Hinchliffe: I have listened to the hon. Gentleman carefully and I agree with much of his speech, although not with his last comments. Does he accept that he is falling into the trap to which the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) referred? He is generalising in his use of figures.
	The hon. Gentleman said that social work assessments had gone wrong in the past and mentioned the problems that he experienced. There are two other checks that we should consider. The first is the role of the guardian ad litem after the assessment process and the second is that of the court. The hon. Gentleman appears to fail to accept that a range of opportunities are available for examining in detail the merits or otherwise of individual applicants.

Julian Brazier: I am not sure whether I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The guardian ad litem service is a big issue. I know that he and other members of the Committee share the anxiety about the muddle in it. It is a scandal that could do much to undermine the good work in the Bill. I am glad that the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, the hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), is present; she is taking a close interest in the matter. However, to answer the hon. Gentleman's point directly, I do not have much faith in the courts on family matters. Indeed, they can be only as good as the information that they receive. The guardian ad litem service was good, but has sadly suffered heavily in the past two or three years. It provides an extra safeguard but that does not greatly affect the argument.

Jonathan R Shaw: The hon. Gentleman likes to use examples, often from his own postbag or constituency surgery, to illustrate and advance his argument. Perhaps I can offer him another example. Let us take a situation in which two gay men were fostering a child who had all kinds of different challenges, and it was felt that the best people to look after that child for the rest of its life were those two individuals. Would the hon. Gentleman deny that child the opportunity to be adopted by those two people?

Julian Brazier: I am afraid that on the basis of the arguments that I have put forward, my answer would be yes. I do not, however, see any reason why one of those people should not adopt the child. I should have made it clear when I answered the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham earlier that my first choice for adoption would always be a married couple. I accept the principle of the occasional gay adoption, but only when there is no one else available. Hard cases make bad law—[Interruption.] I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Kevin Brennan: I did not intend to make an intervention, but as the hon. Gentleman has given me the opportunity, I shall do so. He may be right to say that hard cases make bad law, but he is always using them as examples when trying to make his points.

Julian Brazier: Every single child in care is a hard case, in the sense that the hon. Gentleman uses the phrase. Those who have been in care for more than a year are harder cases, and those who have been in care for more than four years—of whom there were 12,000 when we started campaigning—are very hard cases. I was referring earlier to getting further and further into legal technicalities.

Evan Harris: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Julian Brazier: I will, but then I really must conclude my remarks.

Evan Harris: I want to take the hon. Gentleman back to the important points about generalisation, and the problems surrounding it, that the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) and I raised. If the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) could identify a group of married people that had exactly the same rate of separation that he attributes to unmarried couples—for example, a particular ethnic minority or, perhaps, married service men and women, although I am not suggesting that this is the case— would he execute a broad ban on that group seeking to adopt? If not—since he has said that separation is the key factor—why not?

Julian Brazier: I do not know of any such category. Service families are not such an example. It is true, sadly, that the divorce rate in the Army and the Navy is higher than the national average, but it does not begin to compare with the staggering amount of separations among unmarried couples. It reflects the overstretch that the armed services suffer from at the moment. So I know of no such category, but if I did I would not support a ban on any particular ethnic group. Civil marriage does not ask that people have a particular religion, or anything else other than that they make a public commitment of permanence. That is all it asks. In the debates that took place in the 19th century about the introduction of civil marriage, I would have been on the side of those who wanted to introduce it, precisely because it provided an opportunity for people of no particular religious faith to make a public, legally binding commitment. That is all it involves, and it seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable criterion for adoption by two people who both want legal ties to the child.

John Bercow: I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way; he is always generous in that respect. I want to clarify exactly what his position is. Is he arguing his absolutist stance in support of only married couples being allowed to adopt to the extent that, even if the only reason why an otherwise thoroughly suitable couple could not adopt was that there were religious impediments to their marriage, he would still rule them out?

Julian Brazier: The short answer to that is no, because religious impediments would not stop them having a civil arrangement. Forgive me, but that really is not an argument at all.
	I want to finish by making a wider point. In his excellent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham touched on the fact that there were several other ways in which we could broaden the pool. I want to mention two of them. These measures would introduce extra homes and provide extra opportunities for children in care to be adopted, not through a technicality involving a one-person adoption in a two-person home. They would provide real extra homes.
	The first measure would involve a relatively small redrafting of the first clause of the Bill. We had an indication on the Floor of the House from the Minister's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton), that he appeared to be in favour of such a redrafting, which would alter clause 1(5) so that the requirements on ethnicity and religion would be subservient to the provision in clause 1(3) that there should be no undue delay. Some of the examples that my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham read out illustrated that many local authorities still take the view that they would rather not have a child adopted at all than let the child go to a family that does not match the ethnicity or religion of that child. That is the real scandal.
	The second example involves contact. I think that the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Foster) mentioned this earlier, and I accept his point that a balance has to be struck. We have to consider the circumstances of the child in the birth family from which he or she was extracted. We must, of course, take account of the fact that the child may have made a real bond with an auntie or a granny, or someone else who played no part at all in the unhappy circumstances that led to the child being taken into care. We must also, however, make a reasonable assessment of what it is fair to ask an adoptive parent to take on. In my view, this can only be done after an adoptive couple has been lined up. It cannot, as those wretched advertisements suggest, be prejudged, if we want adoptive parents to take on damaged children.
	I have not had the courage to adopt a child, but the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor) has done so and she knows how much I admire her for sharing her experiences with us. If I had had the courage to take on those two little boys who I mentioned earlier, with all that history, and someone had said to me—as the courts more and more frequently do these days; we even have advertisements from the British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering that apparently prejudge these decisions—XAh, but we want there to be letter-box contact with the birth parents", I cannot believe that even the bravest adoptive parents in the land would stand for it. If someone is taking on really damaged children, they cannot be expected to accept mail from the parents who inflicted the damage; that sort of decision must be made later in the process. That is my second suggestion for widening the pool. Social workers in my own area, including the former director of social services, have told me of individual adoptions that would otherwise have gone through but did not do so because of court rulings on contact with the birth family.
	I shall end where I came in: this is not the burning issue of the hour. The measure was not even in the original Bill. This is a good Bill, and I believe that the best way to look after these children is by extending the opportunities in the way that has just been described, rather than by going down the route of introducing fresh legal complexities—because that is all that this is—to adoption.

Dari Taylor: This is the third time that I have spoken in a debate on the Adoption and Children Bill. Each time, it has been a pleasure, because everyone speaks with such warmth and commitment. Although I disagree with much of what the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) said, I totally applaud his integrity. It was a positive treat to listen to the powerful speech by the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow). It was seriously timely, and I see him as a Member who is making a commitment to a good Bill by reinstating amendments and by putting his career second. Well done!
	This is an excellent Bill. It offers services, opportunities and controls, and, crucially, it says that the rights of children should be put first and foremost. It will speed up the process and introduce a gamut of services to provide support if breakdown in adoption is threatened. Most particularly and specifically, it will widen the pool of potential adopters. That is the essence of the debate for us all: how do we widen the pool of adoptive parents?
	Many believe that because the Bill is good and because it will speed up the processes, those things will of themselves increase the number of potential adopters. I am sad to say that, although that will have an effect, it will not answer the charge. We want to widen the pool and increase the number of people who want to take on an adoptive child, but we must encourage them to accept that many such children have histories—seriously damaged histories—that they will have to cope with. That is an enormous task, so, as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said, widening the pool is not straightforward. I suggest to him, however, that his argument to the House is based much more on confused prejudice than on careful thought.
	The amendment that my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) introduced, which I hope is reinstated by the House tonight and respected by the other place, aims most particularly at widening the pool, giving people the opportunity to have an equal, open and fair relationship with the children whom their partners may have adopted. Most crucially, in aiming to widen the pool, the amendment acknowledges a statement that has been made time and again in the debate, but I shall make it again: we are giving children an opportunity to live in a loving, stable family.
	Sharing my experience with the House, let me say again that I worked in a care establishment. I shall not criticise it, but in no way, shape or form is it better to put a child of four, six or nine with other children in a dormitory where there is no mum, no special relationship and no shoulder to cry on so that the child who is crying can feel that he or she will be treated with sympathy. The answer that is given so many times is, XDon't be so silly—get to sleep." That is because one care worker has to look after 15 children who all need help and attention. How on earth can we conclude that the loving relationship that produces a well-balanced child is present in such circumstances? It is not.
	Some children go from home to home. There is nothing wrong with the homes, but after 40 different ones, such children find it impossible to establish a relationship that is seriously stable and has controls to it. The children are shunted from one to another and believe that nobody wants or loves them.
	Children in the care establishment where I worked looked at me and said, XMiss, do you think that, one day, someone will want me to live with them?" Does the House think that I ever had the confidence to say to a child, XThere is nobody there for you and nobody wants you. You're 14, and you have serious problems. It will take a serious family to take you on board, and you need a lot of support so that you can live in that family." I could not tell a child those things—I did not have the courage.
	The plain fact is that, every year, 2,000 children live the reality of that statement—there is no one there for them. Members are putting to the House their clear, committed ideas on married couples and saying that they are the best and the ideal. Nobody denies or doubts that, but often, we are not dealing with the best or the ideal. We live with reality. A constituent phoned me, as she knew that the debate was taking place today. She said, XI ask you to say one thing in that House of Commons: legislators, get real." I ask the House to do that.
	I want to widen the debate, as we often believe that some groups in our communities will never accept that unmarried couples have the right to adopt or that unmarried gay couples, or gay couples that cannot marry, have no right to adopt. I refer to a letter from the Nottingham branch of the Catholic Children's Society, which, for 50 years, has been recruiting and placing children for adoption:
	XThrough innovative and pioneering practice in the Voluntary Adoption Sector over two decades, many excellent placements have been achieved for older children with troubled histories with single carers, who would not previously have been considered suitable for adoptive parenting because of their lone status during a time when marriage was perceived by society as the 'norm'."
	The society takes matters a stage further by saying that it has
	X5,000 children who currently wait for such family placements . . . recognition should be given to the potential family resources provided by couples who are not married, but can show, through an increasingly rigorous Adoption Preparation and Assessment Programme, that they have the necessary stability and commitment, both to each other and to any child or children they may parent."
	I put that statement to the House. It takes a lot for a Catholic organisation—I am an Anglo-Catholic—to move in such a direction and to see the need to identify such appropriateness. I can only ask hon. Members to hear what the society is saying.
	In the House of Lords debate, it was implied in much that was said that natural parents are best. I ask the Members of the other place who made such comments to accept that they are undermining the serious manner and the whole process of adoption. Natural parents listened to what one of them said: the view was that only birth parents could provide young children with successful relationships, love and security, and that anything less was second best, with gay parenting at the bottom.
	I found it quite disturbing that thoughtful people in the other place held such a view; I felt quite reduced by it. I am an adoptive parent of some 21 years, and I do not think that my love for my child has been less than that which any other person might have offered. The House knows me well—I think that my love has been less questioning and more evident than that of many others. I found that view seriously unacceptable.
	For me, the Bill is about widening the group that could or would consider becoming adoptive parents. The scrutiny of potential adopters does not involve the marriage contract, but, importantly, it is rigorous. It attempts competently to define whether they could produce a stable home and a loving relationship. That is what we are here to achieve in widening the pool. I hope that the House accepts that reintroducing the amendment will help to achieve the loving home longed for by thousands of children.

Andrew Lansley: It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor), who spoke from the heart. Participating in the debate is a humbling experience, because many contributions have been excellent in so many different ways. At this stage, therefore, I want not to rehearse previous arguments, but to consider the question that the House must answer at the debate's conclusion.
	One of the excellent speeches was made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who presented a difficult case in an exemplary fashion. However, I want to question one or two aspects of it.
	This does not strike me as a side issue. It was not part of the original Bill, but if Conservative Members try to justify—or exclude from justification—any aspect of a Bill not originally introduced by the Government, we deny ourselves a range of valuable arguments. Moreover, we must consider the nature of the Bill with which we are dealing, and compare it with the legislation of 26 years ago. This Bill proposes that a child's interests throughout its life should be the paramount consideration, not that its interests throughout childhood should be the first consideration.
	That important change means that we must think hard about all the circumstances of adoption at this point. It would be remiss of us to transfer any aspect of the decision that must be made to a point in the future, or to a separate discussion in a civil partnerships review. If we are genuinely considering the best interests of children in relation to the adoption system, we should think through all the aspects. That was contemplated on Second Reading, not least by Ministers. I remember the Secretary of State for Health, who is present, saying that he looked forward to the debate in the Special Standing Committee, the implication being that if there was a justification for a further change he would have no objection. That turned out to be the case.
	I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), who fostered my original interest in, and understanding of, the immense difficulties experienced by children who are looked after by local authorities, when we served together on the Select Committee on Health. I would feel resentful if it were thought that I, along with some of my hon. Friends and, indeed, Labour Members, was promoting this issue purely in order to campaign on Xlifestyle" issues. The hon. Member for Wakefield and I probably have similar views on many of the matters that we are discussing, but we hold those views less on the basis of any assertion about the lifestyles of adults than on that of the interests of children. Happily, that has been the context of the debate: we are all keen to establish what is in children's best interests.
	I think that all the legal arguments can be dealt with in the same context. If it is true that children's best interests should be paramount—which was established by the United Nations convention on the rights of the child—it follows logically that if by extending the ability to adopt to, for instance, unmarried couples we can improve children's prospects by one jot, we are obliged to do that.
	I do not know—other Conservative Members have asked the question—whether at the end of the process it will be possible for all children placed for adoption to be adopted by married couples because of improvements elsewhere in the Bill; but even if that is so, we cannot know at this point. We must allow for the possibility that we do not meet all our objectives in terms of securing suitable adoptive parents, even with all the other measures in the Bill. It would be remiss of us not to take the opportunity presented to us now.
	It has always seemed straightforward to me. We must contemplate offering the possibility of adoption to unmarried couples, because some will have been deterred in the past by the structure of the legislation, by the presumptions implicit in that legislation and, not least, by the difficulty of determining who is the adoptive parent and who is not. It must be in the interests of children to establish a lasting legal relationship. In the past, when residency orders have been involved, they have expired when children have reached a certain age. If we are now to be concerned about children's interests throughout their lives, by definition we must look beyond residency orders and try to create that lasting legal relationship.
	All Members must think about how they will vote, but that applies particularly to Conservative Members, because we are being asked to support the House of Lords and to oppose the hon. Member for Wakefield. That would cause me immense difficulty. The hon. Gentleman and I discussed an amendment along these lines at the beginning of the year, or perhaps last year. I made it clear on 29 October last year, on Second Reading, that the Bill should address this issue. I wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) on 1 March this year, saying that I would support the extension of adoption to unmarried couples and that the Conservatives should have a free vote. I spoke about the subject on 16 May, and voted contrary to my party's desire on 20 May. It would be wholly inconsistent of me to say now, XMy party says I must vote in a particular way, so I must reverse all my earlier decisions". It would be particularly perverse of me to do so, given that I adopted a view in the absence of a view on my party's Front Bench and had to take an initiative, along with the hon. Member for Wakefield, to embark on that path.

Patrick Cormack: Many of us who disagree with my hon. Friend agree profoundly that this is free-vote territory, and that it was quite wrong to impose a three-line Whip.

Andrew Lansley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for punctuating that section of my speech with a full stop. I am always glad when I can agree with him.

John Bercow: Is my hon. Friend aware that one of the justifications for the imposition of a three-line Whip on this occasion is: XWe did it last time; we could have allowed a free vote but we did not, and it would look bad to change tack now"? Does my hon. Friend agree that it is more important to be right than to be consistent, and that in any case it is more important to be consistent with what was right at the Conservative party conference in Bournemouth than to be consistent with what was wrong in May?

Andrew Lansley: My hon. Friend leads me into difficult territory. I can only say that for me to change tack now would constitute a substantial inconsistency. He is right, though. More to the point, I would be voting contrary to my judgment and conscience, and I can only applaud the way in which my hon. Friend is exercising his responsibility to vote according to his judgment and conscience.
	I am persuaded of the desirability of pursuing the interests of children, to the extent that couples should be permitted to adopt. The question that some will remember from the debates on 16 and 20 May is whether that should mean all couples, regardless of whether they consist of a man and woman living together or of two people of the same sex. I am not persuaded, as I was not persuaded then, that we should necessarily extend the possibility of adoption to same-sex couples, not principally for any of the reasons advanced in the House of Lords but because I wonder whether we should create a set of circumstances in which the state can give children the prospect of having two legal fathers or two legal mothers, rather than one of two other prospects that natural circumstances would otherwise allow—that of having a mother and a father, and that of having a single legal parent who happens to be in a long-lasting relationship.

Dari Taylor: Is the hon. Gentleman really saying that it is better for a child to be in one care establishment after another than to be adopted by unmarried or gay parents?

Andrew Lansley: No. I would hope that the hon. Lady would gather from the context of my argument that I am not saying that. I want to ensure the maximum possible use of adoption as an alternative to institutional care. But—there is always a but—we have to set the framework for those decisions and we cannot set out a hierarchy. We cannot simply say that all married couples should be given priority over all unmarried couples, who should be given priority over same-sex couples. In individual circumstances it will be right for a person in a same-sex relationship to be the adoptive parent.
	In British society today it is a normal outcome for a child to be in a relationship with two adoptive parents who are a man and a woman living together, but for a child to have a legal relationship with both partners in a same-sex relationship would not normally happen and would happen solely at the behest of adoption legislation. That is my problem with the issue.

Evan Harris: The hon. Gentleman, tonight and previously, has been very clear about his reasons for opposing adoption by same-sex couples. However, he will recognise the conflict with his initial presumption. If we could increase the number of suitable homes for children by allowing adoption by same-sex couples, it would be important to do that, even at the cost—as he sees it—of creating an artificial situation legally with a child having two fathers or two mothers. How does he balance those two sincerely held positions?

Andrew Lansley: The greatest number of potential adopters is among unmarried couples, with a smaller number among same-sex couples. Same-sex couples, when considering adoption as a possibility, will be aware that in natural circumstances only one of them could be the natural parent. For a same-sex couple to care for a child does not require both of them to be parents, because that is not what occurs naturally. For example, if a woman has a child and then enters a same-sex relationship, she would not expect her partner to be the mother of that child. We are talking about normal circumstances.
	I admit that I am making fine distinctions, but they are important legally. The preponderant issue is whether adoption should be restricted to married couples and single people, rather than to couples generally, and on that point the burden of the argument lies heavily with the hon. Member for Wakefield and with the conclusion that we have to disagree with the Lords in this amendment. When the matter returns to the other place, it will be for the Lords to decide whether they should think again about their amendment, or to give ground gracefully.
	Whatever happens, the Bill should pass later this week. I have no doubt about that, and that should be common ground on both sides of the House and with the other place. Constitutionally, the other place would be well advised to bear in mind the fact that all parties in this House are committed to adoption legislation and that we have always been clear about the desirability of achieving that legislation as quickly as possible. It would be extraordinarily undesirable for the Bill to be put back to a future Session.
	When the Lords act as a check on this House, they generally do so as a revising Chamber, to ensure that what we do works and is technically competent, or as a check on the power of the Executive. Neither case applies here. The Bill is technically competent and the original amendment was tabled by Back Benchers on both sides of the House. It is not the Government's amendment. Therefore, the essence of the argument with their Lordships is that we are seeking to express a view on behalf of the country about this current social issue. It must be right that the House of Commons is better at doing that than the House of Lords. I hope that the Lords will give ground gracefully.

Kevin Brennan: I wish to pay tribute to many of the speeches made in this debate, not least those by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), by the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), who made a thoughtful contribution, and by the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), who like myself is short of stature but whose speech cast a long shadow across the Chamber. Worryingly for Labour Members, he perhaps defined a way forward for his own party's attitude to social issues.
	I also wish to pay tribute to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench. I have been involved with the Bill from the beginning and have heard many of the eloquent contributions made by him. Today's was no exception. He made a good job of a bad case, unlike the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris), who did exactly the opposite in making a bad job of a good case. Indeed, the last time that we discussed the issue, he did equally well.
	The Bill is not about political correctness. One has only to consider the names of hon. Members supporting the motions to disagree this evening to see that they are not soft southerners or Islington wine bar politically correct types. Indeed, it would be soft southerners and Islington wine bar types who would run a mile from the motions, because they would be worried about headlines in the Daily Mail. That is not the case. The names include my hon. Friends the Members for Wakefield, for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson), for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn) and for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor), who is not a northerner by birth but is Welsh and from the Rhondda valley. Even my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw) is a horny-handed son of toil who is able to entertain hon. Members with Kentish drinking songs. So this is not a matter of political correctness. In fact, it has everything to do with common sense.
	As has been said many times in the debate, no one has the right to adopt. This debate is about doing what is right for the individual child, not for children in general. The weakness of the Opposition's arguments is that they focus on the child as an abstract concept, not on the individual child and his or her circumstances. The issue is one of common sense. We are not arguing that adoption by unmarried couples is the ideal, but it is wrong to make the ideal the enemy of the good when we are considering the interests of the child.
	In pursuing change, we do not have to argue that unmarried people, whatever their sexuality, should be allowed to apply to adopt. They may already adopt—but as individuals. Indeed, they can foster as couples, but they are not allowed to adopt as couples. The opponents of the motion to disagree have not tried to amend the Bill to stop single people adopting. Therefore, their case must be that it is all right for a single person to adopt, even one who has a partner and is in a stable relationship, but it is not okay for a couple to adopt, even when they are assessed to be in a long-term, stable and loving relationship. That leaves the opponents of the motion to disagree with only a statistical argument about the rate of failure of unmarried couples' relationships, but they have no moral argument to make.
	The statistics that opponents of the motion are advancing are deeply flawed, because they are not comparing the right samples. They are considering only the generality of statistics on unmarried couples. They are not looking at the unmarried couples who are putting themselves forward as adopters. They are not comparing the level of failure of relationships between unmarried couples and the number of children who are in institutional care. For some children, institutional care can be the right thing. From time to time, it may be right for certain children to be in care, but the overwhelming evidence is that it is better for them to be adopted.
	I shall cut short my remarks because I know that other hon. Members want to speak and I want to be helpful to them. I have studied the debates in the House of Lords, and I believe that for some this argument is about the fear of a gay contagion, as if somehow it is possible for children who are adopted by unmarried or same-sex unmarried couples—such occurrences are very rare and will still be rare when the Bill is passed—to catch homosexuality from their adoptive parents. That is absurd, but it seems to be an underlying factor. It is impossible, of course, to catch homosexuality from parents, since, by definition, the parents of homosexuals are heterosexual.

Chris Bryant: Mostly.

Kevin Brennan: For the most part, as my hon. Friend says. However, the fear of that happening is an underlying theme throughout this argument.
	I congratulate the hon. Member for Buckingham on his courage and integrity in supporting the motion to disagree tonight and sacrificing so much in doing so.

Huw Edwards: He has not sacrificed much.

Kevin Brennan: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has not sacrificed so much—I accept what my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Edwards) says. The hon. Gentleman's attitude contrasts starkly with that of the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), who speaks on Welsh affairs for the Conservative party. The hon. Gentleman has chosen to be on an oil rig in the middle of the North sea rather than face the prospect of trooping through the Division Lobbies with his party this evening.
	It is incredible that in the 21st century, a so-called modern political party should seek to corral the individual consciences of its Members of Parliament in the way that the Conservative party has done tonight. It is not worthy of being called the nasty party, because that suggests that what its members do is based on an ideology or a Machiavellian plan to get back into power. Perhaps the remarks that I understand were made recently by the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. Mackay) in the 1922 committee about Gerald Ratner's description of his company might be a more suitable description of the Conservatives than the nasty party.

Andrew Selous: I support my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) in resisting the motion to disagree. I have listened with great interest to the speeches this evening. I do not dispute the motivation or sincerity of right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House who have spoken in support of the motion; I simply ask that they extend the same courtesy to me as I try to make my case.
	I believe, as we all do, that adopted children deserve the very best possible environment. We are all united on that—there is no dispute between us. Clause 1(2) states:
	XThe paramount consideration of the court or adoption agency must be the child's welfare".
	We all agree on that. Then come the three words Xthroughout his life", and that is the aspect on which I wish to concentrate.
	Labour Members have criticised the statistics, but I would like to come to the defence of the statistics. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) referred to Disraeli's dictum about lies, damned lies and statistics. However, we know that married couples are more likely to stay together than unmarried couples. We know that the average length of cohabitation is only two years. We know that 83 per cent. of cohabitations will break up within 10 years. I am sure that everybody—married couples, unmarried couples or same-sex couples— starts their relationship hoping that it will be permanent. No one enters a relationship hoping anything else. However, we know from the statistics and the evidence, which we are not here to dispute tonight, that married relationships provide the most permanent form of security, and that is what we are concerned about for adopted children. Of course unmarried and same-sex couples start out intending their relationship to be permanent but, sadly, that does not prove to be the case.

Michael Jabez Foster: The hon. Gentleman mentions statistics. Is it not the case that many cohabiting couples have no intention of remaining together and have no children to care for? It is therefore misleading to compare them with married couples, who may well have children and may want them.

Andrew Selous: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. However, I think that my argument is backed up by the fact that cohabiting couples are, sadly, six and a half times more likely than married couples to split up after the birth of a child. I am concerned about permanence and continuing stability for these very damaged children. That is not to make any judgment about what people do in their private life. I do not believe that anyone in this country is a second-class citizen, as my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham seemed to imply some of us might believe. Parliament deciding who has the care of adopted children is different from private individuals making their own choices.

Ian Lucas: With respect, it is not Parliament that is making the decision in individual cases but the courts. Rather than referring to generalities, why does the hon. Gentleman not concede the power to the court to look at each case, make its own assessment in respect of each child and reach a considered decision? He is seeking to deprive the courts of that right.

Andrew Selous: We deal with generalities in this place. I dare say that some young children of 12 or 13 years old would be perfectly capable of driving a car or exercising positions of responsibility, but we do not allow them that right. There are many issues on which this House, quite properly, generalises.

Evan Harris: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Andrew Selous: No, I wish to make progress.
	I have some sympathy with the arguments advanced by the Labour peer Lord Alli in the other place. He believes that married couples should have preference over unmarried couples, who, in turn, should have preference over homosexual couples. If there were a degree of hierarchy supporting the status of marriage, that could usefully be considered.
	We need to think seriously tonight before we support the motion that will overturn the decisions taken in the House of Lords. There is a considerable body of concern about what the Government are planning to do.
	Ivan Massow, a prominent gay business man, has expressed concern about gay adoption. He is worried about what might happen in the playground, where children might not be politically correct. The same view is held by Michael Brown, a former Conservative MP, who is also homosexual.

Evan Harris: rose—

Chris Bryant: rose—

Andrew Selous: I want to make a little progress.
	I have also been influenced by the debate in the House of Lords in which the Bishop of Winchester clearly explained why the Lords should agree to their amendment. My own bishop, the Bishop of St. Albans, has concerns. Members of many churches in my constituency are anxious about what will happen this evening.
	Contrary to the remarks of the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris), opinion polls conducted not by disreputable organisations but by ICM showed that 71 per cent. of parents have grave concerns about adoption by same-sex couples.
	We know that most European countries do not allow what we are proposing to do. We know that the Government, on five occasions, have argued against the proposals. The Foreign Secretary has made such arguments strongly. Indeed, when the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), commented on the adoption law review, she did not agree with the proposals that we are discussing. We know that 23 Labour peers disagree with the proposals, as does the leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords.
	Many Members have rightly asked how we can widen the pool of people who are prepared to adopt. We have heard harrowing stories from hon. Members on both sides of the House about children who need to be adopted. I pay tribute to colleagues, such as the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor), who have had the courage to adopt. We need to enlarge the pool of people who are prepared to take that courageous decision.
	We need a massive advertising campaign to tell people about adoption. We need to give adoptive parents much greater support. I am prepared to put my money where my mouth is and, as a Conservative, to advocate that my constituents and I should pay higher taxes to support those who would be prepared to adopt children.
	That is the way forward. We need a positive campaign to persuade more married couples to adopt. We need to remove some of the procedures. My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) pointed out that although about 29,000 people responded to a BBC programme on adoption, only a few went on with the process. We should take away unnecessary barriers to adoption.
	That is how we shall extend the pool so that we can ensure that seriously damaged children, who deserve a stable, loving family home, receive the support that they so desperately need.

Hilton Dawson: Although I have been listening to the debate for four and a half hours, I am still a bit ambivalent about it. I realise that this has been a grand parliamentary occasion and that there have been excellent contributions from both sides. However, I am worried that it could provide the media with another opportunity to characterise the whole of an excellent Bill by one provision, rather than by the major developments in adoption work that the measure will bring about.
	I am sorry that other speakers have not sufficiently emphasised the quality of the Bill. It will extend the number of people who will be keen to adopt because it will support them better. It will provide the support that adoptive parents need, the lack of which led to the breakdown of many placements in the past. Assessment and recruitment will be better. The focus will be on ensuring that good practice is developed throughout the country.
	The debate has been very good indeed. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) who made a remarkable speech. It is appropriate to congratulate him on both his speech and his forthcoming marriage. There has been the usual social work debate, characterised by the tedious contributions of my colleagues—some of whom have not had as much social work experience as me and some of whom have had many more years experience than me, but they lay on with a trowel the length of time that they have worked for social services.
	People have also compared the length of time that they have been married. I am pleased to point out to the hon. Member for Buckingham, who brought up the subject, that I have been married for much longer than my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe). By the time of the marriage of the hon. Member for Buckingham, I shall have been married for 29 years. The hon. Gentleman probably faces the same amount of time on the bleak wastes of the Opposition Benches if he continues his current political trajectory. However, after his speech this evening, I can assure him that there is a place for him in the next Government recruitment campaign for social workers. He gave a magnificent exposition of the qualities of that fine profession.
	This is a serious debate and it is right and proper that Labour Members have a free vote. It is a matter of conscience. The adoption process is complex. Not only is there intensely difficult work to assess prospective adopters, but there is also the matching of children and young people who have been through appalling experiences, which would knock all of us sideways, in appropriate placements.
	I want to give the House a word of caution, indeed censure. It is vital that we realise that adoption is part of a system. We talk about the desirability of adopting 5,000 children who are in care, but there are actually 55,000 children in care. Most of them will go back to their homes, which I welcome; we need to improve the facilities for working with families. However, many of them will remain in foster care, so I was distressed to hear some of the descriptions of foster care during the debate.
	Long-term and short-term fostering are important options for children, as is residential care. The Government have performed magnificently by investing in all those forms of care. They have developed policy throughout the whole care system nationwide and various initiatives are being implemented.
	I was a few minutes late for the debate because I was at the launch of a splendid initiative launched by A Voice for the Child in Care, which will ensure that the voices of children and young people are heard more and more as opportunities are transformed in children's services. We should acknowledge both the value of the whole care system and that each part of it should be developed to provide for the needs of children.
	We are talking about the needs of children. This is a matter of conscience. Members who are minded to vote with the House of Lords and indeed the Members of that place should search their consciences.
	Whatever well founded principles one has about marriage or Christian principles governing the way that people should live their lives, it cannot be right to put them above the individual needs of children who require placements. We require an extraordinary range of talents and different placements for the many children who need to be adopted. We must ensure that the needs of children who require adoptive placements are met.
	I cannot think it right that any Member of the House or the other place puts even well established and firmly held principles above the needs of individual children. Surely we cannot say that any individual child should lose out on the lifetime opportunity of stability and family life because we think that we should put off a decision until we have got the law right, that we should stand on our principles about marriage, or that we should put anything before the needs of individual children. My vote tonight is with the children.

Jacqui Smith: Once again, we have had a very good and well considered debate on this issue. The majority of hon. Members who have spoken have made it clear that, as the Government believe, our only consideration should be what is in the best interests of the child. That fundamental principle, which derives from the Children Act 1989, is enshrined, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) said, in the Bill's very first clause.
	The Government's objective in the Bill and in the action that we have taken since the Prime Minister's review of adoption is to increase the number of children who have the opportunity through adoption to grow up as part of a loving, stable and permanent family, and there are encouraging signs that our drive to increase adoption is working. The number of children adopted from care is increasing. Nearly 3,100 children were adopted from care last year—1,200 more than in 1997.
	The Bill and all the improvements that it will bring to the adoption system and the money that we are investing in the adoption service and improving adoption support can only build on that progress. Although the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) agreed that that was important, he seemed to argue that, somehow, this was a case of either taking forward the action that the Government already have in train or supporting the amendments in lieu of the Lords amendments. Of course that is not the case.
	As many hon. Members have said, the ability to widen the pool of adopters that the amendments in lieu would provide is a very important part of what the Government are trying to do in relation to adoption, but it is worth taking up a few of the points that hon. Members made about what more we need to do to encourage adopters.
	First, the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) suggested that, we had not properly tackled the need to ensure that families came forward and that we were putting delays into the system. I have to repeat to him that the key point in the adoption standards, which form the basis for all our work, is that children will be matched with families who can best meet their needs and that they will not be left waiting indefinitely for a perfect family.
	The hon. Gentleman also reiterated his view that the Bill will require an ethnic match and that that will hold up the ability for children to be adopted. That is just not true; as we have frequently said, clause 1(5) will simply require that, when placing children for adoption, the agency
	Xmust give due consideration to the child's . . . racial origin and cultural and linguistic background."
	That cannot override the duty in clause 1(3) to bear in mind the fact that delay is likely to prejudice welfare. We have the clear requirement in the national standards.
	I have some sympathy with those hon. Members who have expressed concern about the way in which the assessment process is carried out. Of course that is why we are also undertaking a fundamental review of the assessment process, to ensure that prospective adopters have better education and information, that there is more consistency and transparency in the process, and that we are clear when people come forward as prospective adopters about what will be asked of them.
	The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) called for recruitment activities to be supported, and we are already providing such support. Under the Bill, we will introduce an independent review for possible adopters who are turned down by adopter panels, to provide more certainty about the process.
	The hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) called for tax rises to help adoption support. I do not remember him and other Conservative Members voting for the investment outlined in the Budget. Nevertheless, the Government are investing #70 million in improved adoption support, which will enable people to come forward with more certainty that they will have the support that they need to take on some of those very difficult children. So we are making progress, but there is no room for complacency.
	As we have heard, BAAF estimates that 5,000 new adoptive parents are needed every year. It says that there is no shortage of adopters for very young children, but they represent only one in every nine children adopted, and we recognise that and several hon. Members have made that point.
	Many hon. Members have referred to BAAF's publication, XBe My Parent", and to the fact that, in one month alone, 431 children appeared and that there were 1,255 inquiries about them, but the crux of the matter is that 65 of those individuals and 64 groups of siblings received no inquiry at all. As many hon. Members have very powerfully said, no one felt able to express an interested in adopting the eight-year-old boy who is interested in football and swimming and is lively but who has mild learning disabilities and has been in care for the past four years. No one felt able to offer the stable family life that children need so much to the five-year-old boy who is keen on computer games, bicycling and dogs but who was taken into care at the age of one. That is the basis of my support for the amendments in lieu of the Lords amendments—measures that will make a difference to the possible pool of those who can provide a family life to those children.
	In supporting my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield, I should like to point out that amendments (a) to (uu) in lieu would complete the changes necessary to the Bill that are consequent on the decision to allow unmarried couples to adopt jointly. Those amendments fall into three main groups. The first group contains those amendments that would replace references throughout the Bill to Xmarried couple", Xstep-parents" and Xpersons to whom the adopter is married" with references to Xcouple", Xtwo-people adopters", Xpartner" and Xpartner of a parent", and insert the new definitions of Xcouple" and Xpartner" in relation to a parent in the glossary contained in schedule 6.
	The second group contains amendments that would ensure that adopted people have a clear legal status, irrespective of whether adopted before or after the Bill is enacted or whether by a married couple, a single adopter or an unmarried couple. The amendments would enable relationships created by adoption to be described in law as adoptive relationships, and they would also preserve the status of people adopted prior to the Bill.
	The third group contains amendments to adoption and other legislation consequent on the changes to the legal status of adopted people. When the House votes, as I hope that it does, for the principle of allowing unmarried people to adopt, that will ensure that the necessary consequential amendments are included. I want to make it clear that the House will have an opportunity to vote on all the amendments in the group. I want to ensure that the House has a chance to express its views on these and any amendments in lieu where appropriate. In addition, I would move any outstanding motions to disagree to Lords amendments if and when the knife falls—

Evan Harris: Will the hon. Lady clarify a point that was raised over four and a half hours ago about whether the Government agree with the Joint Committee on Human Rights? The Committee concluded:
	XAs amended at Report stage in the House of Lords, the Bill may . . . no longer be compatible with the right of children to have their best interests treated as the paramount consideration under CRC Article 23, and is likely to be incompatible with the rights of unmarried couples, wishing to be considered jointly as potential adoptive parents, to be free from discrimination under ECHR Article 14 combined with Article 8, and under ICCPR Article 26."

Jacqui Smith: The Government took legal advice when the Bill was introduced in the House of Commons, which was that the position in the 1976 Act and in the Bill as it then stood was, on balance, defensible on ECHR grounds. As we have heard, the Committee has now given its view that the Bill as amended by the Lords is incompatible with convention rights, and the Government do not necessarily accept the reasoning of the Committee. We recognise, however, as we always have, that in the light of developing case law—not least some of that cited by the hon. Gentleman—there is a risk that the current law and the Bill as it stands would be found to be incompatible. Clearly, much will depend on the circumstances of individual cases. I shall now return to the key issues.
	Much has been said about the propensity of unmarried relationships to break down—that was a key part of the arguments of the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous). We are not suggesting, however, that all unmarried couples or all same-sex couples should have a right to adopt. We are simply saying that these couples should have the same right to be assessed jointly as prospective adopters as that enjoyed by married couples.

Julian Brazier: Will the Minister give way?

Jacqui Smith: No.
	When considering the suitability of couples as adopters, agencies and the courts are not assessing from the public at large but from a small self-selecting group who have decided that they would like to adopt. Incidentally, we should be grateful to and encourage that group of people, not label them as being concerned about making a lifestyle choice, as the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) did at the weekend.
	The overall statistics are not, therefore, a helpful guide. People who are in casual, short-term relationships are most unlikely to put themselves forward as prospective adopters, and if they did, they would certainly not advance beyond the first stage of the approval process. The key is in the assessment process, which ensures that we can identify with confidence those single people and couples that have the qualities needed to be successful adoptive parents. Adoption is about making judgments about suitability and judgements based on evidence, not judgments based on generalisation and—dare I say it—sometimes prejudice. One cannot use generalisation to determine assessment—that is not acting in the best interests of children. One can, however, assess each prospective adopter on their own merits so that an informed decision can be taken as to their suitability to offer a home to a vulnerable child. That is why the adopter assessment process is critical, and the assessment process is tough. That point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn), and in the brave and wise speech of the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), which reflected the in-depth analysis that he has undertaken of this issue.
	We have spelled out in the framework for assessment, which is currently out for consultation, the tough questions that will need to be asked about the stability and security of the relationship of any couple coming forward to be potential adopters. The sorts of issues that social workers will seek to discuss with them will be about the history of their current relationship and any previous relationships, what makes that relationship work, whether the relationship has been severely tested and survived, how the couple go about resolving difficulties, how they perceive commitment, where they see themselves in 20 years' time, how decisions are made within the partnership, how conflict is dealt with in the relationship, and whether both partners support each other and meet each others' needs. We are asking whether people believe that those are the crucial factors that need to be discussed. It seems to me that that is a tough and rigorous approach to ensuring that we make clear that couples who come forward to adopt will be in very stable relationships. That is the toughness of the assessment that hon. Members have outlined today.
	Some have seen these amendments as an attack on marriage. That is rubbish. My marriage is not made stronger by knowing that the loving, caring and skilled potential parents down the road are prevented from offering a home to a child because they are not married. Marriage is not the strong institution that I believe it to be if it has to be protected by limiting the life chances of vulnerable children.
	Many Members have rightly argued that what we need to ensure for children is stability and security. Of course, single people, including gay people, can already adopt. They have been able to do so since 1926. Some of them will be in long-term relationships, and the assessment process already considers the nature of those relationships. What the reforms will do is enable adopted children to have a long-term legal relationship with two parents. I fail to see how that undermines security and stability. Children have written to the Department of Health outlining some of the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) about the security that comes from a legal relationship with two parents. The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw), demonstrated the illogicality of the position that opposes these reforms.

Julian Brazier: Will the Minister give way?

Jacqui Smith: No.
	The hon. Member for Canterbury would accept a child being adopted by one member of a gay relationship but would resist the stability that allowing both to have a legal relationship with that child would ensure.

Julian Brazier: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it not a convention of the House that if the Member speaking refers to a Member who is present in the Chamber, who then seeks to intervene, he or she gives way?

Madam Deputy Speaker: I remind the hon. Gentleman that when a Member is winding up a debate, it is usual for him or her to refer to numerous Members.

Jacqui Smith: Hon. Members would have been disappointed if I had not referred to them.
	This debate is about making difficult but fundamental choices for children. It is about whether our adoption system should be based on the needs of individual children and families or on dogma backed up by dodgy statistics. It is about whether we focus on the reality of modern children and families or on outdated visions of a supposedly perfect family life. It is about whether more children are adopted or whether they end up staying in care. The alternatives for the children whom I mentioned earlier are not to be adopted by a married couple or to be adopted by an unmarried couple, but to be adopted or to stay in care.
	For some Members, the choice is between being nice or nasty. Of course, Labour Members are free to vote to be nice, but Conservative Members have been whipped to be nasty, and there have been times in the debate when it has felt rather like intruding on private grief. This is a difficult issue, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out on Second Reading. We said that we would listen; we have listened and that is why these reforms are being introduced. I repeat: nobody has a right to adopt—

It being half-past Eight o'clock, Madam Deputy Speaker put the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [this day].
	The House divided: Ayes 344, Noes 145.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Lords amendment disagreed to.
	Lords amendments Nos. 32 to 36 and 66 disagreed to.
	Government amendments (a) to (uu) in lieu of Lords amendments Nos. 26, 32 to 36 and 66 agreed to.

Clause 2
	 — 
	Basic Definitions

Lords amendment: No. 1, in page 3, line 16, leave out from Xinformation" to end of line 18 and insert
	Xand
	(b) any other services prescribed by regulations, in relation to adoption.
	( ) The power to make regulations under subsection (6)(b) is to be exercised so as to secure that local authorities provide financial support."

Jacqui Smith: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Madam Deputy Speaker: With this we may discuss Lords amendments Nos. 2 to 25, 27 to 31, 37, 38, 42, 43, 45, 47, 50 to 57, 62 to 65, 67 to 91, 98 to 101, 103 and 105 to 107.

Jacqui Smith: We come to a group of mostly minor and technical amendments—[Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Will Members leaving the Chamber please do so as quickly as possible so that the debate can continue?

Jacqui Smith: There are 80 amendments in this group. I would be more than willing to go through them one by one, but perhaps I shall just give hon. Members the high points to begin with. Included in the group are amendments to the Bill's provisions on placements, voluntary adoption agencies, access to information and advocacy services. Many of the amendments were tabled by the Government in response to the views expressed by peers when the Bill was considered in the other place.
	Lords amendments Nos. 14 to 24, 30, 31 and 80 make changes to the provisions in chapter 3 covering placement of children for adoption, principally to ensure that placements of young babies are properly covered, but in addition to improve arrangements for relatives and others to obtain contact orders for children who are placed for adoption.
	Lords amendments Nos. 14, 17 to 22, 24 and 31 ensure that children who are placed for adoption when under six weeks of age are explicitly covered by the provisions in chapter 3, that the arrangements for getting contact orders also apply to them, and that parents' rights to request the return of their child from any voluntary baby placement are clearly set out in the Bill so that there can be no doubt. Amendment No. 31 also ensures that it is possible to make a placement order in respect of a baby under six weeks, and that that order will be a valid basis for a later adoption order. That is to allow for the placement for adoption of young babies in cases where the parents do not consent.
	On contact, amendments Nos. 14 and 15 improve the provisions in clause 25 for contact orders where children are placed for adoption. They allow relatives, including siblings, to apply for a placement contact order without needing the leave of the court. They also give the same rights to people who had Children Act 1989 orders for contact with the child before the child was placed for adoption. Amendment No. 30 to clause 46 ensures that the court can make adoption orders where a child has no parents. Amendment No. 80 to schedule 3 ensures that children looked after by local authorities can be placed for adoption across borders in the UK without the specific permission of their natural parents.
	A second group of amendments relate to voluntary adoption agencies. Amendment No. 81 amends the Care Standards Act 2000 to provide that voluntary adoption agencies do not have to register each branch separately. That is because, under the Adoption Act 1976 and the Bill, voluntary adoption agencies must be incorporated bodies. I am sure that hon. Members will remember from our discussions that adoption agencies must be incorporated bodies because they have significant responsibilities, which may include parental responsibility for a child. Incorporated bodies are separate and distinct from the individual members of the body, and therefore provide a much clearer definition of where the responsibilities for the child lie.
	Amendment No. 12 inserts a new clause which ensures that each registration authority under the Care Standards Act—the National Care Standards Commission and the National Assembly for Wales—has the appropriate level of scrutiny over the activity of agencies operating in their area.
	The remaining amendments, Nos. 43, 63, 67, 84 to 91 and 103, are consequential on those two key amendments. For example, they ensure that under the 1976 Act, the Secretary of State and the National Assembly for Wales may make joint regulations by making the regulation-making powers appropriate-Minister powers. That may be necessary as these regulations will make provision relating to the regulation of the way voluntary adoption agencies are run. Given that voluntary adoption agencies will be cross-border bodies, it may be appropriate that these regulations are made jointly.
	I move on to the amendments dealing with access to information. All hon. Members who have followed the passage of the Bill throughout its stages up till now will know that access to information is a subject about which there has been much discussion. Amendment No. 42 builds on amendments tabled by the Opposition on Report in another place. Those reflect some of the arguments made so strongly and effectively by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan) throughout the Bill's passage through this place.
	The Government acknowledge that the Opposition's amendments sought to tackle our concerns that adoption agencies should not be burdened with work that would draw their resources away from arranging and supporting adoptions for today's children, if we ensured that it was easier for people adopted before the new access to information provisions in the Bill came into operation to gain information about other people involved in the adoption.
	Amendment No. 42 provides through regulations for registered adoption support agencies to operate an intermediary service for contact between adopted adults and their adult birth relatives. Adoption stakeholders welcomed the amendment. Adoption support agencies will be able to access identifying information relating to past adoptions from the registrar-general and from adoption agencies. We intend to ensure through regulations that there are safeguards to protect that information, and to provide for it to be disclosed only if the informed consent of the adopted adult is forthcoming. The amendment inserts a new clause after clause 95 and amplifies the power in clause 9 to make regulations for the disclosure of information in relation to adoptions made before the Bill is enacted. Lords amendments Nos. 4, 8 and 70 are consequential on Lords amendment No. 42. It is the Government's firm intention to use the regulations to establish the scheme and set out the details in regulations after consultation with adoption stakeholders.

Kevin Brennan: I thank my hon. Friend for referring to my small part in this process, and I pay tribute to the Government for listening to the points that I made on Second Reading and in amendments tabled in the Special Standing Committee and other stages of the Bill's passage, and for listening to the Opposition when they picked up the proposals. I praise her for her handling of the matter. I am sure that the incorporation of the amendments in the Bill will be due in no small part to her listening approach.

Jacqui Smith: That is nice of my hon. Friend and very sweet of him. It is right that the Government listened, but considerable pressure was exerted, for which he not least was responsible. Without turning the debate into a love-in, I believe that the amendments are a good example of effective scrutiny of legislation by a Government who have been willing to listen.
	The final amendments relate to advocacy services. Lords amendment No. 47 inserts a new clause that introduces new section 26A into the Children Act 1989 in relation to advocacy services. As we have considered the provisions, and especially improvements to the complaints procedure in relation to children, many hon. Members have argued about the need to ensure not only that children's voices are heard, but that children are adequately represented and supported, especially at the very difficult time of making complaints. Once again, my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) has played a very important part, as he always does, in pushing for such development.
	New section 26A to the Children Act 1989 places a duty on local authorities to make arrangements for assistance, including representation, to looked-after children and young people leaving care who make or intend to make complaints under sections 24D and 26 of that Act. It also provides for regulations to specify who must not provide the assistance. That will enable regulations to ensure the independence of that service. Other regulations may be made under section 26A relating to how the service must be provided and the actions that local authorities must take to monitor its compliance with the regulations. Finally, the new section provides that local authorities must publicise the service as they consider appropriate.
	This series of amendments tabled in the other place and supported by the Government in some cases improves the Bill even further and in many cases brings about the necessary technical and consequential changes attendant on those decisions in these very important areas.

Tim Loughton: The Minister promised us some high points and we have just had a few. It is a shame that more of the 493 hon. Members who were with us only 15 minutes ago have not stayed on to listen to an explanation of these very important amendments, which have improved the Bill in great measure in all the areas that she mentioned.
	I am particularly pleased with the improvements that have been made in respect of placements for young babies. With regard to the necessary changes on contact orders and parents' rights—points that we raised in Committee and on Report—the Government have listened and accepted the relevant amendments in another place.
	There are the changes regarding voluntary adoption agencies, and we have had debates about the incorporation of those bodies. Access to information changes were rightly raised, in the first instance, in Committee by the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan), and supported by the Opposition. The issues were raised more forcefully on Report. Several adoption agencies were consulted. We were talking about people who had given up children for adoption as far back as 1926 as well as people who had given up children similarly very recently. There was a span of three quarters of a century during which birth relatives, in many instances, had the last opportunity to make contact with children given up for adoption, often under duress, in difficult circumstances, especially during post-war years.
	The Bill was their last chance. I am pleased to say that almost at the 11th hour the Government have listened to objections from Members, adoption agencies and many individual mothers, who I know have written in and contacted their Member of Parliament. It is a credit to the Government that they have found ways of overcoming real practical problems that the Minister outlined on Report. The problems include agency records that are incomplete and the not inconsiderable extra demands that acquiring information could place on adoption agencies. That is setting aside all the extra work that we are expecting the agencies to do to increase the numbers of people coming forward to adopt. There are difficulties in locating people after many years while using old records. There is, of course, a huge potential demand for the service.
	No one pretends that the process will be easy, but the principle was right. If the Government have found a way of putting the principle into effect, I am delighted. More importantly, many thousands of birth mothers over many years—many of them are in their twilight years—will be eternally grateful to all those who have enabled the amendments to be brought about.

Andrew Lansley: I take the opportunity to express my appreciation of the work that my hon. Friend has undertaken on consideration of the Bill. He and I have not agreed on absolutely everything at every stage, but on the great majority of issues I admire the diligence with which he has gone about his task and the improvements that have resulted from his scrutiny and interventions. The access-to-information provisions are a good example of that. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend.

Tim Loughton: There we are. The occupants of both Front Benches have now had a love-in, so we are all equal. I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We have not agreed on absolutely everything, but he has been an assiduous follower of the Bill. He was not a member of the Committee, but he knows about the practicalities of some of the things that we needed to do to improve the adoption support service, regardless of the debate that took place earlier.
	The Minister grouped together the amendments relating to advocacy services. It is natural that following the improvements to the complaints procedure, which took up a deal of time of hon. Members in Committee, children's voices need to heard rather more loudly than in the past. Many of us made that point on Report. It is right that there should be a duty on local authorities to make assistance available, and it is right also that it should be publicised. I know from the experience of my district's advocacy service in Adur that excellent work is done. It is often unappreciated and unheard of, but the work is expanding enormously, not least in the areas of health and social services. The work is directed not least to help elderly people who are faced with a barrage of problems relating to access to health care benefits, for example. It is right that these services should be extended and that resources should be made available to deal with children's issues in the context of adoption.
	There is no point in being churlish. It is a time to rejoice in many of the great improvements that have been made during the Bill's passage. From the early stages when the Committee started its deliberations, improvements have been made. They did not happen immediately, and the Opposition were not necessarily credited with them at the time, but we can all share in the Bill's success and many of the improvements. The amendments are key contributions and I have great pleasure in supporting them.
	Lords amendment agreed to.
	Lords amendments Nos. 2 to 25, 27 to 31, and 37 and 38 agreed to.

Clause 82
	 — 
	Restriction On Bringing Children In

Lords amendment: No. 39, in page 45, line 31, leave out paragraphs (a) and (b).

Jacqui Smith: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Madam Deputy Speaker: With this, we may discuss Lords amendments Nos. 40 and 41, Government amendments (a), (b) and (c) thereto, 58, Government amendment (a) thereto, 59 to 61, Government amendment (a) thereto, 92, 93, Government amendment (a) thereto, 94, 95, 96, Government amendment (a) thereto, 97, 102 and 104.

Jacqui Smith: The group focuses on the application of intercountry adoption provisions to parents, relatives, guardians and step-parents, and provides for the time that the child must live with the adopters before an adoption order can be made.
	First, let me deal with the time that the child should live with the adopters. Section 13 of the Adoption Act 1976 provides that, when the applicant is a parent, step-parent or relative of the child, or the child is placed by an adoption agency, or in pursuance of an order of the High Court, the child must be placed with the applicants for 13 weeks before the adoption order can be made. In cases of intercountry adoptions, which are not agency placements, the child must live with the applicants for 12 months. Clause 41 sets out the residence periods in the Bill.
	For non-agency placements, for which clause 41 does not provide elsewhere, the residence period is three out of the previous five years. However, clause 82(6)(a) enables regulations to provide that clauses in chapter 3 apply with modifications or do not apply to children who are brought in under clause 82. Hon. Members will remember that, to improve the safeguards for intercountry adoption, we intend to use that power to provide that the child must live with the applicants for six months when the correct procedures have been followed and 12 months when they have not.
	When clause 82 does not apply, the standard residence period in clause 41 will apply. However, it is intended that clause 82 will apply to all but a limited group of people. The exceptions are likely to be, for example, parents in prescribed circumstances. Under clause 41, the residence period for parents is 10 weeks.
	The amendments are intended to make clear the residence periods that should apply to convention adoptions and to ensure that the same modification powers are available for early implementation of the restrictions on intercountry adoption. In summary, whenever the correct procedures have been followed, we intend that the child should live with the adopters for six months. That would ensure that the children had time to adjust and settle with their new families, and that the local authority had been able to monitor the placement satisfactorily before the court made the order.
	As I said earlier, when the correct procedures have not been followed, we intend that the child should be required to live with the adopters for a minimum of 12 months to allow the child to settle with the new family and the local authority to assess the family fully in lieu of the checks that should have been made before the child came to live with the family.
	I turn now to the amendments that deal with the issue of to whom the provisions on intercountry adoption should apply. Hon. Members will remember the structure of clause 82, which relates to restrictions on such adoptions. In their previous form, the provisions ensured that parents and relatives were excluded from those restrictions. We have received representations from intercountry adoption stakeholder groups expressing concern about intercountry adoption by relatives. They have suggested that, at present, the welfare of the child is not paramount, because these cases are treated predominantly as an immigration issue rather than an adoption matter.
	The groups have raised concern about the lack of preparation undertaken by relatives adopting from overseas, and about the fact that relatives do not have their suitability to adopt assessed unless the child's home country requires it. They have made it clear that this means that we cannot be sure that those relatives will provide a safe, secure environment for the child. We have listened carefully to the issues that they have raised, and we believe that this is an important issue that needs to be addressed.
	Clauses 82, 84 and 128 of the Bill, the transitional provision in paragraph 10 of schedule 4, and section 56 of the Adoption Act 1976 place restrictions on the circumstances in which children may be brought into the UK or taken out of the UK for the purposes of adoption. At present, those restrictions include the requirement for a person wishing to bring a child into the country for the purpose of adoption to be assessed and approved by an adoption agency, and for a person wishing to take a child out of the country for the purpose of adoption to be in receipt of an order permitting this. However, these safeguards do not apply when the prospective adopters are the child's natural parents, natural relatives, guardians or step-parents.
	In the light of the concerns that stakeholders have raised, we have returned to the case for exempting those groups, and come to the conclusion that something should be done to address the issue. The approach that we have taken, through the amendments, is to remove the specific exemption of parents, guardians, relatives and step-parents from the provisions that set out the restrictions. Then, in each case, a regulation-making power has been taken to enable us to prescribe that the provisions setting out restrictions on bringing a child in or removing a child are not to apply—or, in the case of taking the child out of the country for the purposes of adoption, are to apply with modification—to parents, guardians, relatives and step-parents. For example, amendment No. 41 inserts a new clause in the Bill containing such regulation-making powers in relation to clauses 82 and 84. This reflects the need to be flexible and to be careful that we do not impose these restrictions inappropriately. Using those regulation-making powers will provide the necessary flexibility to react to changing circumstances. It may become clear through experience and discussions with other countries that it would be inappropriate for certain groups to be included in the restrictions. We intend to consult on who should be exempt from the restrictions, and the use of regulations will allow for the responses to be taken into account.
	Amendments Nos. 39 to 41 deal with the position under the Bill. Amendments Nos. 58 to 61 deal with the position under the Adoption (Scotland) Act 1978, and amendments Nos. 93 to 96 deal with the position under the Adoption Act 1976. Because the amendments remove the explicit exemption of parents, guardians, relatives and step-parents from the restrictions, this gives us additional powers in relation to residence periods. It means that we will be able to use the regulation-making powers in clause 82 of the Bill, section 50A of the Adoption (Scotland) Act 1978 and new section 56A of the Adoption Act 1976 to make regulations to modify the time a child must live with a parent, relative, guardian or step-parent in intercountry adoption cases.
	These are detailed amendments, but our clear intention is to ensure that children being adopted from overseas by parents, relatives, guardians and step-parents are properly safeguarded. We recognise that such children are vulnerable, that they need protecting and that their relatives may need the same assessment of suitability and/or help to prepare for adoption as a stranger planning to adopt a child from overseas. However, we are also clear about the fact that we do not want to impose unworkable restrictions and that we need to take the advice of those working in the field as to any groups that should legitimately be excluded. That is why we have taken care to include in the amendments regulation-making powers that provide the necessary flexibility to react to experience, changes in practice and the views of professionals.
	Lords amendment agreed to.
	Lords amendments No. 40 agreed to.
	Lords amendment No. 41 and Government amendments (a) to (c) thereto agreed to.
	Lords amendments Nos. 42 and 43 agreed to.
	New clause
	Lords amendment: No. 44, before clause 110, to insert the following new clause—XOrders with respect to children—
	In section 8 of the 1989 Act (residence, contact and other orders with respect to children) there is inserted—
	X(5) The Lord Chancellor may make regulations providing for the separate representation of children in specified circumstances relating to any matter arising from proceedings under this section.""

Rosie Winterton: I beg to move, That this House disagrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Madam Deputy Speaker: With this we may discuss Lords amendments Nos. 48 and 49, the Government motions to disagree thereto and amendment (a) in lieu thereof.

Rosie Winterton: First, I must make it clear that in moving motions to disagree with amendments Nos. 44, 48 and 49 made in the other place, the Government are not disagreeing at all with the principle that children should have a say in decision making regarding their future. The Government amendment in lieu seeks to meet the spirit of the amendments made in the other place while eliminating some technical flaws and reducing duplication.
	Neither the amendments made in the other place nor the Government amendment would add to the existing powers of the courts or the Lord Chancellor. The courts can already order that a child be made a party and separately represented in any family proceedings. However, we have listened to and respected the views of the House and the other place, and we agree that those powers should be explicitly referred to in primary legislation.
	The Government, in tabling their own amendment in lieu of those made in the other place, seek to address three key concerns that have been raised during the passage of the Bill. First, there is too stark a distinction between public law cases in which the state intervenes in a family's life—for example, care proceedings—and private law disputes between individuals. Secondly, the power to provide for the separate representation of children is not referred to explicitly in primary legislation. Thirdly, children should have access to separate representation more frequently than they do at present.
	The Government's amendment would make it clear in primary legislation that applications for the making or revocation of a placement order will be specified proceedings as defined by section 41(6) of the Children Act 1989. The child will be a party, a children's guardian will be appointed, and the child will be separately represented in every case. The issue has been raised both here and in the other place. The Government have already said publicly that they will make such proceedings specified; the amendment would embody that commitment in the Bill.
	Using Lords amendment No. 49 as a basis, the Government's amendment in lieu provides that proceedings for section 8 orders—such as contact and residence orders—can, in circumstances to be established by rules of court, be designated specified proceedings. That will give us the necessary flexibility to take into account the outcome of planned public consultation on the representation of children in private law proceedings. Using section 64 of the Family Law Act 1996 as a basis, the Government's amendment amends section 93 of the Children Act, dealing with rules of court, to enable the Lord Chancellor to make rules to provide for the separate representation of children. He has made such provision in the current rules, but the amendment sets his power in primary legislation. That is intended to address Lords amendments Nos. 42 and 48.
	The Government's amendment goes wider. It will apply not only to applications for section 8 orders, but to other proceedings under the Children Act—for example, applications for special guardianship orders. It makes it absolutely clear that we have power to specify certain categories of private law proceedings as requiring children to be parties automatically, and to be separately represented. The amendment would place in primary legislation the ability for rules to provide for children's separate representation in private law cases. It goes further than Lords amendment No. 44, as it applies to all proceedings under the Children Act.

Hilton Dawson: What would be the effect on children appearing at adoption hearings? Will they have ready access to separate representation?

Rosie Winterton: Not all adoption proceedings will require separate representation. The issue has been much discussed, and I think it is agreed that it will not be appropriate in some cases. We are trying to adopt a belt-and-braces approach to the current situation. We want it to be stated in primary legislation that other circumstances can also be specified in regard to automatic representation.
	The amendment should not be seen in isolation. We have already completed a Xscoping" study of how children might have a more effective voice in family proceedings. There will be full public consultation, which will begin later this year. That consultation will also address the third concern raised in debates here and in the other place about the need for greater consistency in how the powers available to the courts are used in practice. If necessary, following consultation, we can add to the definition of specified proceedings and use court rules to guide the courts in those cases in which the separate representation of the child may be especially important.
	The amendments do not change the existing position. Children may already be separately represented in any family proceedings, but the Government's amendments are intended to make that commitment explicit in primary legislation in order to address the concerns that have been raised. Those changes in primary legislation must not be the end of the story. We need to ensure that the powers provided under the Children Act 1989 work effectively, and that is why we need to have the flexibility to take into account the results of consultation when making court rules. It is important that we listen to the views of children and young people themselves. I ask the House therefore to disagree with Lords amendments Nos. 44, 48 and 49, and to support the Government's amendment in lieu.

Evan Harris: Strictly on a non-love-in basis, I wish to congratulate both Ministers on the mastery of their briefs and to thank them for their courtesy. I even extend my thanks to the Conservative spokesman, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who has occasionally been courteous to me and was, no doubt, very courteous to my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley). She has been promoted out of this portfolio, but wished me to pass on her thanks. [Interruption.] I will not be drawn on whether she has escaped or been punished.
	I come late to the issue, but I do not intend to oppose the amendments in lieu. However, I wish to raise several points on behalf of those who have supported our campaign. I have received help from the NSPCC, Women's Aid, NCH and the legal department at BAAF in promoting the approach that the Government have now accepted. The original amendments, the spirit of which the Government have accepted, were tabled by Lord Listowel, but were moved by my colleague, Baroness Thomas. We would appreciate some clarification on certain issues: if not now, then in the other place when the original movers of the amendments will have the chance to put their view.
	I shall not rehearse the basis of the amendments, because the Minister has done that admirably. I thank the Minister for accepting the thrust of the amendments and, indeed, for going further in some of her amendments in lieu, which are of course more correctly drafted. My first question is whether the necessary and relevant court rules will be made as promptly as possible, because without them the amendments would add nothing to the Bill. The existing framework is in place, so the addition of the court rules would be straightforward. Does the Minister have in mind a timetable for her proposals to consult? We remember section 64 of the Family Law Act 1996, which was never implemented, so people with an interest in the matter will want to see the actual regulations.
	The Minister has clarified that children will be full parties in the circumstances in which she envisages that the court will feel that to be appropriate. The children will then have the benefit of both the children's guardian and a solicitor.
	Another question is whether it is appropriate to replace Lords amendment No. 48, which requires the court to have particular regard to
	Xthe wishes and feelings of the child considered in the light of his age and understanding"
	and the need for his separate representation. The Minister in the House of Lords who argued against the amendment pointed out that the court has a duty in any case under the checklist in section 1 of the Children Act 1989 to consider the child's wishes and feelings. That is true, but only to a limited extent. Section 1(4) of the Children Act sets out the circumstances in which the court is required to use the checklist, and those circumstances do not include applications by step-parents for parental responsibility orders under new section 4A or for special guardianship orders, which the Minister mentioned, under new section 14A, both of which the Bill inserts in the Children Act. In both cases, it is particularly important that the court has an opportunity to hear the child's wishes in respect of the application.
	In the case of applications by a step-parent for parental responsibility, there is to be no requirement for any kind of report from a social worker or children's guardian and no easy means for the court to ascertain the child's wishes and feelings unless it is specifically required to inquire into them. Among other things, special guardianship orders place severe restrictions on parents' rights to exercise their parental responsibility and to give special guardians the power to exercise their parental responsibility Xto the exclusion of" another person with parental responsibility. It could therefore have more serious consequences than a section 8 order, yet the section 1 checklist is not automatically applied.
	I presume that the Government intend that the court should have regard to the child's wishes in both types of application. They will probably say that they will make appropriate provision for consulting the child in the regulations governing local authorities' duties to report to court in respect of special guardianship applications. I accept that, but I fear that even that safeguard is not present in respect of the step-parent applications.
	I should be grateful for the Minister's clarification, either now or later, on whether the absence of Lords amendment No. 48 would leave a lacuna in the need for the children's views to be covered in respect of step-parent applications. Otherwise, I am reasonably happy with the Government's proposals and repeat my thanks to them for accepting, after what I understand was an exciting vote in the House of Lords, the principle behind the need to have written into primary legislation the provisions that the Minister has outlined.

Margaret Moran: May I add my welcome to the introduction of the proposal, which incorporates the spirit of the amendments that were put forward in another place? Throughout the Bill's proceedings and in the Special Standing Committee, the issues surrounding child protection were focused on the need for an independent voice for the child as well as the protection of children in contact cases. The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), is probably fed up with hearing me talk about that. However, together with the coalition of children's charities and Women's Aid, I welcome the Government's proposals.
	The House will not be surprised to learn that the coalition of children's charities is keen that these rules be introduced at the earliest possible opportunity. They believe that there needs to be special consideration of the circumstances for separate representation of children. They have indicated a number of areas that they would like covered in separate representation, such as cases in which implacably adversarial parents create high levels of conflict in which the child's interests are disregarded or where there is a history of violence. As we have said throughout the Bill's proceedings, children are at their most vulnerable when there is violence in the household, and it is vital that their voices are heard as clearly as possible.
	The children's charities also believe that separate representation is important where a child is unaware of their relationship with an absent parent; where the court accepts the need for medical or psychological reports on the child in family proceedings; where concerns about the welfare of a child in a family fall short of child protection measures or of a direction under section 37 of the Children Act 1989; where a clear conflict of interest between one or both parents might include conflicts that arise in the future if a child disagrees with court-approved arrangements made some years earlier when the child was young; where a child who was previously the subject of divorce proceedings is going through such proceedings on a second or subsequent occasion; and where there has been unreasonable denial of contact or when a child's parent is to be committed for contempt of a court order issued to allow contact with another parent.
	Those are examples of the circumstances that the children's charities want dealt with under the rules at the earliest opportunity. The introduction of an independent voice for children is but one plank in a range of measures to protect children. As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary is aware, our special concern is to protect children when there is domestic violence.
	My hon. Friend will also be acutely aware that, despite some of those measures, there will still be cases where children are vulnerable. We heard recently from Women's Aid of a child contact order case in which a solicitor had to have alarms installed because of the fear of attack and had to flee the court, alongside the judge, because of the violence of the parent. Despite all that violence, even in the court, the violent parent was granted contact with the child.
	That is one example of the many that my noble Friends related to show their concern that we may need further legislation to protect children in such circumstances. I am sure that the independent voice of the child will add to our armoury of protection, but I invite my hon. Friend to acknowledge the concerns of many Members on both sides of the House by assuring us that there will be early consultation on such measures and that, if necessary, there will be further legislation, as was suggested in the other place, to ensure that the full protection of the law is available to children in contact cases where there is domestic violence.

Hilton Dawson: I rise to congratulate my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department on the real progress that has been made on separate representation.
	I join my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, South (Margaret Moran) in urging that the section 8 provisions be introduced quickly.At my constituency surgery last Saturday, some worried grandparents told me about contact proceedings in a local court, where the judge had found it necessary to tell an 11-year-old child that he could have her dragged kicking and screaming to a contact session, even though there had been child protection issues and allegations in the past.
	I hope that we are dealing with the final aspects of the Bill, so I want to emphasise the importance of separate representation for some children at adoption hearings. I accept the Minister's view that it would not be necessary in all cases—for example, where many problems were sorted out when making the placement order and where young children were involved. However, the fact that so many issues can be sorted out at that stage makes it especially important that some young people have a further opportunity to raise problems at the adoption hearing.
	We have acknowledged throughout debates on the Bill and today that adoption is changing; it is a much more open process and much more contact is involved. It is highly likely that many contact issues, particularly those involving older children, will need to be resolved at adoption hearings. That would not necessarily be terribly contentious, but it is important—particularly for contact with siblings, but for contact with the wider family as well—that there should be an opportunity to allow the child's voice to be clearly heard and articulated in court.

Rosie Winterton: This has been short debate, but, as might be expected, very many important issues have been raised. First, may I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) for his usual wise comments and the experience that he brings to our debates. He is absolutely right to say that it is important that everything possible be done to ensure that the voice of the child is heard in adoption proceedings, but, as he says, of course there may be some cases where separate representation is not appropriate—perhaps the adoption has been undertaken by a family member and all parties, including the child, are happy.
	The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) asked about the timing. We intend to consult on the secondary legislation—the court rules—and hope to do so by the end of this year. There will be a three-month consultation period, following which we will draft rules, and they will be laid before Parliament for 28 days. It is therefore not possible for me to give an absolute guarantee on timing. We have to undertake the consultation; we have to take note of that consultation and ensure that it agrees with what we are proposing, and then it has go through the parliamentary procedure.
	The hon. Gentleman raised an issue in connection with Lords amendment No. 48. The courts already have to pay attention to the child's wishes and feelings under section 13 of the Children Act 1989, and section 93 of the Act is also relevant. It is important that we do not duplicate what already appears in primary legislation, and I assure him that the courts have to ascertain the wishes and feelings of the child in the light of his or her age and understanding.
	The hon. Gentleman also suggested that there is a lacuna in respect of step-parents. We do not believe that such a lacuna exists, but I shall certainly come back to him if one does.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, South (Margaret Moran) spoke with her usual passion about consultation and how it relates to contact issues. I hope that I can reassure her by saying that we have specifically asked the stakeholder group looking at cases involving allegations of violence to consider how we take the views of the child into account in those cases. In terms of making certain proceedings specified, we will consider many of the issues that she rightly raised. The group that we will be consulting includes the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, CAFCASS, Barnardo's and NCH. I hope that the group will produce recommendations by the end of the year. I know that she is very much aware, too, of the fact that we are considering in the round all the issues that she raised tonight.
	The need for further legislation is always kept under review. At the moment, however, I am very keen to make sure—given the changes that we are making here and the changes that we have made in the past—that the legislation works adequately and for the benefit of children in vulnerable situations. I look forward to working closely with my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, South, who is chair of the all-party group on domestic violence, and with the organisations that are already working with us to look at how we can increase protection for children.
	Having given those explanations, I hope that the House will agree to Government amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendment No. 49.
	Lords amendment disagreed to.
	Lords amendment No. 45 agreed to.

Clause 112
	 — 
	Special Guardians

Lords amendment: No. 46, in page 63, line 29, at end insert—X(b) a birth parent;"

Jacqui Smith: I beg to move amendment (a) to the Lords amendment, in line 2, leave out Xbirth".
	Amendment No. 46 was a Liberal Democrat amendment accepted by the Government on Third Reading in another place on the understanding that we would need to table a technical correction in the House of Commons. The effect of amendment No. 46 is to insert Xbirth parents" into the list in proposed new section 14F(2) of people whose needs for special guardianship support a local authority may—or, if the Secretary of State requires, must—assess on request. We have said previously that we could use the power in proposed new subsection (2)(c) to prescribe other people who may be assessed, which would be a means of including birth parents. We are, however, sympathetic to the suggestion that we should provide a signal in the legislation that we anticipate that birth parents are likely to be key recipients of special guardianship support services, which is why we agreed the amendment. However, the term Xbirth parent" is not one used in the Children Act , so we need to correct it to Xparent". The amendment will thereby achieve the intention behind amendment No. 46, as the term Xparent" will be given its natural meaning—the child's birth parents, or, in the case of adopted children under special guardianship orders, their adoptive parents. I hope that Members will recognise that that addresses the concerns underlying the original amendment and the need to make a technical correction to it.
	In case this is the last time that I speak in the House on the Adoption and Children Bill—[Interruption.] As the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) says from a sedentary position, I jolly well hope that it is. I want to put on record the honour that I feel at having served on this Bill. Members on both sides of the House have agreed that the Bill will make a difference to vulnerable children and to the adoption process.
	I particularly want to place on the record my thanks to the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), and the other members of the Committee, including the Whips and my Parliamentary Private Secretary, who have stayed with the Bill throughout its lengthy proceedings. To continue the love-in that started earlier, I record my appreciation of the good-natured way in which Opposition Members have approached the Bill, the commitment of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) to scrutinising it and the hard work of the hon. Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley), which I understand has resulted in her promotion. I also pay tribute to the commitment of the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris).
	It has been an honour to work on this Bill, and I hope that this will be the last thing that I have to say about it, but the most important point is that it will, I hope, in years to come, make a difference to the opportunities for children in this country.
	Amendment agreed to.
	Lords amendment, as amended, agreed to.
	Lords amendment No. 47 agreed to.
	Lords amendments Nos. 48 and 49 disagreed to.
	Amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendment No. 49 agreed to.
	Lords amendments Nos. 50 to 57 agreed to.
	Lords amendment No. 58 and Government amendment (a) thereto agreed to.
	Lords amendments Nos. 59 and 60 agreed to.
	Lords amendment No. 61 and Government amendment (a) thereto agreed to.
	Lords amendments Nos. 62 to 65 and 67 to 92 agreed to.
	Lords amendment No. 93 and Government amendment (a) thereto agreed to.
	Lords amendments Nos. 94 and 95 agreed to.
	Lords amendment No. 96 and Government amendment (a) thereto agreed to.
	Lords amendments Nos. 97 to 107 agreed to.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Supreme Court Of England And Wales

That the draft Maximum Number of Judges Order 2002, which was laid before this House on 15th October, be approved.

Data Protection

That the draft Data Protection (Processing of Sensitive Personal Data) (Elected Representatives) Order 2002, which was laid before this House on 24th July, be approved.

Constitutional Law

That the draft Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) Order 2002, which was laid before this House on 16th October, be approved.—[Dan Norris.]
	Question agreed to.

PETITIONS
	 — 
	Food Supplements

Gordon Marsden: I rise to present a petition of some 450 people in Blackpool who are supporters of Consumers for Health Choice. I am delighted to do so and give the petition my strong support. It reads as follows:
	To the House of Commons
	The Petition of Consumers for Health Choice and its supporters,
	Declares that consumers in the United Kingdom have for many years maintained good health by choosing to take safe vitamin and mineral supplements and herbal remedies; and fears that the European Food Supplements Directive and the Proposed European Directive on Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products would severely restrict the number and range of such products on general retail sale in the future.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons requires that the Secretary of State for Health does all in his power to protect the rights of U.K. consumers by ensuring that such European legislation does not unnecessarily and unacceptably restrict the availability of natural health products.
	And the Petitioners remain, Etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

Sue Doughty: I rise on behalf of 112 petitioners from my constituency who are supporters of Consumers for Health Choice. The petition has my full support. It reads as follows:
	To the House of Commons
	The petition of Consumers for Health Choice and its supporters,
	Declares that consumers in the United Kingdom have for many years maintained good health by choosing to take safe vitamin and mineral supplements and herbal remedies; and fears that the European Food Supplements Directive and the Proposed European Directive on Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products would severely restrict the number and range of such products on general retail sale in the future.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons requires that the Secretary of State for Health does all in his power to protect the rights of U.K. consumers by ensuring that such European legislation does not unnecessarily and unacceptably restrict the availability of natural health products.
	And the Petitioners remain, Etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

BIRTHS, DEATHS AND MARRIAGES REGISTRATION

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Woolas.]

Chris Bryant: With all the votes, it feels as though we have run a marathon in the past few minutes.
	I am told by one hon. Friend that I have won the award for the most obscurely named Adjournment debate this year, and the title does indeed conjure up images of Dickens' Circumlocution Office. The moments of birth, death and marriage are some of the most tender in people's lives, but they are also points at which the state touches people's lives, day in, day out. It is often forgotten that it is not only the civil registration of marriages that is governed by state legislation: all marriages in church and religious ceremonies are covered as well. It is worth bearing it in mind that, in 1999, 263,515 marriages took place in England and Wales, so the number of people touched every single year by parliamentary legislation is significant.
	In a former world, there was a different dispensation: the Church provided for all hatching, matching and dispatching. The Church—as opposed to the state—started to intervene in marriage in 313, so it has been directly involved in such matters for a long time. In the former world, a fact of significant interest to the state when legislating on marriage in particular was that the vast majority of people remained resident in one place throughout their whole life, so the system that arose covering, for example, the publication of banns of marriage was eminently suitable for the villages of England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland in the 10th or 11th centuries, and remained suitable up until perhaps the mid-19th century. Since then, however, things have changed, and now many of our constituents may, throughout the course of their life, reside in 10, 15 or even 20 constituencies.
	One of the most significant changes to have occurred in recent years is to marriage. The number of people who choose to get married not in church but in a civil service has grown dramatically.

Tom Harris: It might help to reinforce my hon. Friend's argument, with which I agree, for him to learn that only last week I was invited by my researcher, Mr. Donald Campbell, to act as his best man at his wedding next June on top of a mountain near Aviemore.

Chris Bryant: I am not sure which mountain near Aviemore that might be, but I am sure that there could be no better best man than my hon. Friend. He may be interested to know that that option would not be available to his researcher if he were living in England or Wales because the law prohibits people from marrying at the top of a mountain, in their back garden or anywhere else other than specially licensed premises. My hon. Friend has neatly made my point.
	The number of church marriages is falling dramatically: 34 per cent. of all marriages in England and Wales in 1989 were performed in churches in either the Church of England or the Church in Wales, but by 1999 the figure had fallen to 25 per cent. So, across a 10-year period, there has been a significant fall.
	Across the span, over the past 170 years since civil registration began in 1837, many understandings about birth, death and marriage have changed. People's understanding of suicide and how the law should deal with it has changed dramatically. Whereas 170 years ago—even 50 years ago—suicide was primarily considered a sin and therefore to be treated as illegal, meaning that people had to be buried separately from consecrated ground, nowadays most people would consider the mental health rather than the criminal issues involved.
	The change in the law in 1994 that allowed marriages to take place not just in registry offices but on approved premises resulted in 1999 in the marriage of 37,709 people on approved premises around the land. The vast majority of them took place in hotels, which are doing a nice trade as a result, but we have not yet seen full liberalisation, which I hope we might see soon.
	Other understandings have changed. Even 30 years ago, the understanding of stillbirth was very limited. It is only in the past few years that people have realised that giving the child who was born dead a name and providing an opportunity for proper bereavement are essential to the long-term mental health of the couple involved. There is still some way to go in the registration process, as I shall say in a moment. There has also been a large falling away in the number of baptisms conducted by all the Churches—for a series of reasons, which I shall not go into.
	For all those reasons, I am delighted that the Government have published an excellent although perhaps slightly under-read White Paper, XCivil Registration: Vital Change". I presume that Xvital" in that context is a pun. Intriguingly, the White Paper has been issued under the auspices of the Treasury. I am sure that the Minister will later tell us why it was not a Home Office document. I also presume that many of the issues that will be addressed in legislation to come will reform the Marriage Act 1949 and subsequent amendments to it, especially the Marriage Act 1994, but I should like to describe a few areas in which the Government should be encouraged in their move towards change. I shall go through them in life order, as it were, starting with birth.
	I mentioned the marked falling away of the number of baptisms over the past 100 years. It is important none the less that there should be an opportunity in today's society to recognise the moment of birth. I am sure that many families would welcome a formal opportunity—a rite of passage, as it were—to invite friends and family to an officially recognised naming ceremony. I am glad to see that that is in the Government's White Paper and I urge them to take that idea forward. I know that many registrars are keen to establish that new service.
	In the world of the internet, it would also be helpful if people were able to register a birth online. There are thousands of other things to be getting on with at the time of a birth without having to worry about finding a register office and going along to it.

Anne Begg: Before my hon. Friend goes through the other six of the seven ages of man, I want to draw to his attention a reform that I would like to the registration of births, which is to do with people who have changed sex during their lifetime. I have a constituent who was born a boy but had an operation and is now living as a woman. She would like to change her birth certificate to reflect her new sex. Does my hon. Friend agree that that reform is long overdue in this country?

Chris Bryant: I thank my hon. Friend. I wholly agree with the point that she makes, which has been made to me by a couple of my own constituents. The Minister may want to return to the matter later.
	Pursuing further the issue of weddings, I am aware that, in a sense, I am one of the least likely people in the Chamber to be talking about weddings, though I am reminded of some words of Noel Coward:
	XI've sometimes thought of marrying—and then I've thought again."
	The present law is still relatively restrictive, compared with many other countries, and compared with most people's expectations of the law. So, for instance, one is allowed to get married only between 8 am and 6 pm, and only in certain places. The law also allows only certain fairly perfunctory services. I know that many people do not want to go for a church service, but would like a service that is a full recognition and which has all the weight and dignity of a decent service; and they have sometimes felt that the services offered by registry offices do not quite meet that necessity.
	I would welcome the Government's move towards the celebrant-based understanding of registration—that is, instead of registering the place where one gets married, one registers the person who is to do the marrying. In terms of guaranteeing the dignity of the service, the most important issue is whether the person standing in front of the couple on behalf of society and of the people can conduct the ceremony with due dignity. People should have the freedom to choose where they want to get married, whether on the stands of the Millennium stadium or the top of a mountain in the Rhondda. Wherever they want to get married, they should be able to make that choice, while at the same time ensuring the dignity of marriage. Without that moment of dignity, the whole institution of marriage is undermined, which I am sure no hon. Member wants to happen.
	There are specific issues that the White Paper does not address substantially. The Government may intend to introduce another White Paper. I understand that the Church of England expects them to do so later this year. As there is not much more of the year left, I do not know when that would happen. There are still some anomalies in relation to religious weddings, which are provided for in legislation. For instance, there are no restrictions on the times when Jews and Quakers can get married, or on the places in which they are allowed to get married. The main way in which ordinary members of the public can get married anywhere they want, if they can persuade the Archbishop of Canterbury to allow them to do so, is by getting hold of an archbishop's special licence. That is used in certain circumstances, but not as widely as it might be.
	There are other anomalies. The residency requirement that is laid on church weddings to enable people to apply for a common licence, if they are to get married in their local parish church or if they are on the electoral roll, is crying out for amendment. From my former days as a vicar, I know that many vicars who have pretty churches are happy to enable anyone to qualify to be on their electoral roll, regardless of their attendance at the church. I do not want to issue calumnies about the clergy, but we may need to help the clergy to be a little more honest in the matter.
	I support the Church of England's recommendation—I wonder whether the Minister would like to comment on this—that instead of a residency requirement or the electoral roll requirement, it would be better to prove a demonstrable connection between the couple who are applying to get married in a particular church, and that church.
	On the subject of deaths, I have already mentioned the issue relating to stillbirths. Many hon. Members will know of families who have been somewhat distressed by the process of registration, or in some cases the absence of a process of registration, of their stillbirth. Although the national health service and many other organisations have moved on in providing support for couples, it is important that we move towards providing a simpler system which looks more like the registration of a death than the registration of a birth and of a death.
	It should also be possible for couples to register a still birth in the hospital where it happened—a system that is now operated by some hospital trusts around the country. If couples are to register a still birth through a registrar, they should do so by appointment rather than by having to turn up in a room where people might be celebrating the birth and registration of a newborn child or a marriage. It would be more sensitive to introduce separate waiting rooms and an appointments system. It would also be a good idea to waive the registration fee for those registering a still birth, and it is obviously important that those involved in registering still births are given some help, understanding and training in the issues that they might encounter.
	One tiny issue of which the White Paper takes note is the problem of people who die at sea. I hope that the Government will address it, not least because a distant relative of mine died in that way. As I am sure the Minister is aware, those who die at sea but do not die on a ship cannot have their death registered in the same way as others. The problem applies in respect of remarkably few people every year, but is none the less very distressing for the families concerned.
	The Government mentioned several times in the White Paper the move towards making available the archives of the registers on the web, which I welcome. As genealogy is one of the most popular pastimes in Britain today—one has only to visit a computer store to see how many different software applications are available to enable people to build their family tree—it would be good if we could provide those engaged in research and ordinary members of the public with the opportunity to access all that information on the web as soon as possible. I hope that the Treasury will not be niggardly or parsimonious—I am sure that it would never want to be—in allowing that to happen.
	I am grateful for the opportunity to raise these issues and I hope that this debate has not been as dry as parchment, as some hon. Members suggested to me earlier that it might be. 10.17 pm

Ruth Kelly: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant) for bringing his attention and that of the House to these important matters.
	As my hon. Friend said, civil registration is an important service that touches everyone at some time during his or her life. It ensures the civil status of every person, protecting individuals as well as society as a whole. However, as he pointed out, the current system dates back to the 19th century. The needs of society, families and individuals have changed dramatically since then, and it is important that civil registration adapt to reflect those changes and support today's society.
	My hon. Friend thought that it was perhaps a little odd that a Treasury Minister should be present to deal with these matters. Perhaps I should explain why. As he is aware, the registrar-general is responsible for administering the law relating to the registration of births, deaths and marriages in England and Wales. The registrar-general's office forms part of the Office for National Statistics, and I am the sponsor Minister for national statistics. In that role, I am also responsible for civil registration.
	The Government consultation paper XSupporting Families", which was published in 1998, recommended that there should be a review of the civil registration system in England and Wales. It also promoted the idea of a wider role for registration officers, to include the provision of services associated and linked with the registration of births, deaths and marriages. The registrar-general was asked by the Government to take forward that review, following which he published a consultation paper, XRegistration: Modernising a Vital Service", in 1999. The review does not extend to fundamental marriage law, although Ministers agreed that the registrar-general could consult on widening the choice of places of marriage.
	There were almost 1,000 responses to the consultation. Together with other evidence, they were used to formulate a new policy framework for civil registration. Subsequently, on 22 January this year, the Registrar-General published the White Paper XCivil Registration: Vital Change", which details the Government's proposals for improving civil registration in England and Wales.
	The Government's proposals, as set out in the White Paper, will give more choice in using registration services—choice about where and how to register a birth or death and where one can get married, as well as the wider choices of new services such as baby naming and marriage reaffirmation. These proposals will improve the service that users receive. They will allow change and innovation to continue in future and they will make full use of modern technology, about which I shall say more. They will help also to maximise the benefits that this can bring to individuals and organisations while continuing with the necessary safeguards.
	My hon. Friend suggested that we should make civil registration records available in electronic form over time on the internet. That is precisely what we propose to do. Over time, we hope that all existing records of births, marriages and deaths will be computerised. Looking forward, it is intended to develop a system based on web technology for the future collection of civil registration information. That system will incorporate technologies that are up to date, robust, flexible and efficient. It will also contain features to maintain security of the data, and to authenticate users where that is necessary.
	The Government have chosen to distinguish between historical records—those relating to people born more than 100 years ago—and records relating to people born within the past 100 years. We propose to fund the computerisation of the latter group of records, although some of the information will be treated as confidential. These historical records are to be made fully open and available to the public. The Government recognise that family history is a popular hobby. We have said that we would support not-for-profit organisations investing in the introduction of electronic access to these records.
	I move on to marriage law and the wider role that is envisaged for registration officers. As I have explained, fundamental marriage law is outside the scope of the civil registration review and is the responsibility of the Lord Chancellor. Respondents to the registrar-general's consultation paper supported the prospect of greater freedom to marry in places other than those currently approved for marriage. It is widely acknowledged that many of the current restrictions on the time or place of marriage, which have been in place since 1837, are no longer appropriate in today's society.
	I wish to reassure the House that we intend that the solemnity and dignity of marriage should be upheld in the proposals that we put forward. The registrar-general will continue to issue guidance about how that solemnity and dignity should be retained during the marriage ceremony.
	As for Church of England marriages, currently the rule is that in most cases a couple who want such a marriage must go to the parish church of the place where one or both of them live, or are on the church electoral roll. However, it is not always easy to determine whether a person is Xresident" in a particular place at a particular time. I understand that one of the problems has been different views on precisely what residence means. For example, the general view is that a student who is living elsewhere during term time may still be Xresident" at his or her parents' home. Another example is where a couple wish to marry in the parish where one of them grew up and where his or her parents still live, even though he or she has a home elsewhere throughout the year.
	Some clergy apply stricter criteria than others in these cases when deciding whether the person concerned is also resident in the parish where the couple wish to marry, and instead of calling banns may, I understand, require the couple to obtain an Archbishop of Canterbury's special licence. I am advised that such a licence can permit a marriage at any time and in any place, and without the calling of banns or the completion of any other marriage preliminaries. The archbishop is responsible for laying down the criteria to be applied in deciding when to grant a licence, but the detailed procedure is determined by the faculty office. Licences are granted, for example, to permit marriages outside the parish in which the couple live, in a private chapel or, in an emergency, where one of the couple is ill.
	As the House is aware, it is not for the Government to speak for the Church of England or the Church in Wales. However, I am advised by the Lord Chancellor that the General Synod of the Church of England decided in July that the Church should also move to a more flexible set of principles on where marriages may take place.
	The Church proposes to preserve the ancient right of a parishioner to marry in the church of the parish where he or she lives, but at the same time to create a range of well defined cases in which a couple can marry in some other place of worship where they have a Xdemonstrable connection".
	While the details are still being worked on, a good many couples who in the past would have needed to obtain an archbishop's special licence to marry should no longer need one. The proposals tie in closely with those of the Government, and the Church will work with us to bring about the changes.
	The Church does not intend to abolish the special licence procedure, which has not, it believes, outlived its usefulness. It will still be needed as a means of allowing special flexibility in exceptional cases; a similar provision exists for civil marriages in the form of the registrar-general's licence.
	The special licence procedure will also be used to permit marriage in places other than places of worship. However, I am advised that the Church is clear that that should not mean a free-for-all, which would permit marriages in unsuitable venues. In our White Paper, the Government explained that the registration service is ideally placed to act as a focal point for information about services associated with births, deaths and marriages, such as social security benefits, marriage preparation and probate. The new support and advisory services will be complemented by the provision of celebratory services such as baby naming, the reaffirmation of marriage vows and civil funerals. Like my hon. Friend, I believe that there is a genuine opportunity for local authorities to develop those services innovatively to meet the needs of their communities, now and in future. A wider role for the registration service will improve on the current piecemeal approach by local authorities and will be underpinned by the proposed national standards.
	Baby naming ceremonies give parents who prefer a secular ceremony the opportunity to celebrate the birth of their child publicly and show their commitment to its upbringing. The Government will expect local authorities to ensure that a baby naming service is available.
	Some couples wish to celebrate key wedding anniversaries by reaffirming their marriage vows. The Government support the provision of secular marriage reaffirmation ceremonies and will expect local authorities to ensure their availability. That will provide couples with an alternative to equivalent religious ceremonies and will form a natural and appropriate extension to the role of the registration service.
	The Government acknowledge that it may be appropriate for local authorities to offer other celebratory services. The law will be designed to respond to emerging public demand so that local authorities can innovate and extend their services to fulfil the changing needs of their communities.
	My hon. Friend also mentioned still births, currently defined in legislation as children who are born after 24 weeks. There is already provision for their registration. Proposals in the White Paper will make that registration easier and give parents more options about the way in which to provide that information.
	As my hon. Friend acknowledged, making the necessary changes to registration is long overdue. It will not be easy and it will not happen overnight. Changes to legislation will be made through order-making powers in the Regulatory Reform Act 2001. It contains wide powers, matched by tough safeguards, for reforming legislation on a regulatory regime such as that which relates to civil registration.
	As I hope I have made clear, the proposals for reforming civil registration reflect the Government's wider agenda for modernising public services. We aim to improve and simplify services and to introduce greater flexibility and more choice. Modernising civil registration is an important part of the Government's aim of focusing public services directly on people's needs. Above all, it is important that the public receive a better service at such important moments of their lives.
	I thank my hon. Friend for presenting the matter for consideration. I assure him that the Government are determined to introduce major reforms to the civil registration service in England and Wales.

Brian Iddon: Does my hon. Friend agree that the views of registration officers should be taken into account and that security of the records is important?

Ruth Kelly: I agree. I appreciate my hon. Friend's interest in the welfare of registration officers. We have consulted them closely in developing the proposals, and we intend to take account of their views. We agree that there is a balance to maintain between security of, and open access to, the relevant data. We are committed to finding an appropriate balance.
	As I said, we want to respond to emerging public demand and we hope that local authorities will be in a position to take advantage of the new proposals.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.